Perfect Dark Development Was “Essentially Started Over from Scratch” on Unreal Engine 5 in 2022 – Report

Production on the Perfect Dark reboot started in 2018 shortly after the founding of The Initiative, and the game was announced in December 2020, but multiple reports in the years since then have made it clear that the game has run into a succession of setbacks and development issues behind-the-scenes. A new report published on IGN has done the same, while also shedding light on the current state of the project.

As per the report, after the first few years of Perfect Dark’s development were characterized by a lack of any real progress, The Initative changed development partners, swapping Certain Affinity for Crystal Dynamics, following which development had to ostensibly be rebooted. That’s largely down to the fact that in the period between its partnership with Certain Affinity ended and one with Crystal Dynamics began, The Initative decided to switch engines and move to Unreal Engine 5.

One Crystal Dynamics employee speaking to IGN, who chose to remain anonymous, said, “A lot of the project, if not almost all of it, ended up needing to be wholly reworked. They had done three years of work on it already, but we didn’t benefit from three years of work.”

The report claims that Perfect Dark has made slow but steady progress since Crystal Dynamics has come on board, though even now, it’s said to be “in the earliest stages” of production, and as such, still roughly 2-3 years away from release.

In its current form, it seems Perfect Dark is taking shape as a narrative-drive FPS that will balance combat, espionage, gadgets, and movement. Read more on that through here.