Perfect Dark To Be Released As Late As 2026, Claims Report

The Perfect Dark franchise is over two decades old, and Microsoft is looking to revive the franchise with a fresh reboot for Xbox Series S|X consoles. Announced in 2020, the game’s development is being led by The Initiative.

The developer is also receiving help from Crystal Dynamics, but a new report points to various concerns about the game. According to IGN, Perfect Dark is unlikely to release before 2025.

The report states that the game is two or three years away from release.

Why it matters: With AAA games becoming more expensive and time-consuming, each new release can be considered a risk for game developers. Microsoft hopes Perfect Dark can become a huge AAA title, but development has been far from smooth.

While the game was announced in 2020, not much work was done on Perfect Dark in the following years. IGN states:

“The Project has seen roadblock after roadblock.”

The report highlights that the game has seen various reboots. While The Initiative is currently receiving help from Crystal Dynamics, the game started development with Certain Affinity as co-developer.

However, this did not work out, and the team lost various developers over several years. Developers could not decide the core mechanics of the game and kept considering different ideas.

This ultimately meant that Perfect Dark was never developed properly. This issue became worse when the developers decided to switch to Unreal Engine 5. The switch was made just before Crystal Dynamic became involved.

IGN reports that development on Perfect Dark had essentially started from scratch in 2022 after the team switched to Unreal Engine 5. A Crystal Dynamics developer stated:

“They had done three years of work, but we did not benefit from three years of work.”

Previously, Matt Booty stated that Perfect Dark gameplay would arrive by 2024. However, IGN believes the game is not coming anytime soon.

With the title being a few years away from release, it would be surprising to see gameplay so soon. Still, Microsoft is betting on Crystal Dynamics and The Initiative, hoping to deliver a strong game for its growing first-party lineup.