What shape and form the Perfect Dark reboot will end up taking has been one of the most commonly asked questions in the Xbox community, what with the only look we’ve gotten at the game being its CG announcement trailer nearly three years ago. That, of course, has been a product of the game’s troubled consistent and prolonged production issues, and a new report publised by IGN has shed more light on that.
After detailing Perfect Dark’s many behind-the-scenes issues, from a lack of clear vision and a lack of progress even after years of development to a switch in co-development partners from Certain Affinity to Crystal Dynamics, the report goes on to state that since the Tomb Raider studio came on board, the project has made slow but steady progress, and is finally beginning to take shape. Development was allegedly more or less started over from scratch in 2022 in Unreal Engine 5.
And exactly what is it taking shape as? As per the report, Perfect Dark will be a first person shooter, similar to its predecessors. Taking place in an eco-futuristing setting, the game will be focused on storytelling, while on the gameplay front, it will allegedly balance combat and stealth mechanics and gadgets in line with its espionage premise. The report also states that game is making use of “some experimental movement tech”, though it remains to be seen what that will end up being.
Though the Perfect Dark reboot has finally started to make some progress, the report says the game is still in the earliest stages of production, and is, as such, still roughly 2-3 years away from launch.
Earlier this month, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty said that based on recent builds he had seen for Perfect Dark at The Initative, he was “cautiously confident” Microsoft would be able to do an extensive gameplay reveal for the reboot within the next 18 months. Read more on that through here.