Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal CEO Phil Rogers said last year that Perfect Dark development is going “extremely well.” However, Microsoft and The Initiative continue to be extremely coy with details, which seems in line with rumors of development hitting “road bump or two.” Nevertheless, technology-wise, it appears to leverage some impressive aspects of Unreal Engine 5.
The LinkedIn profile for Tyler Thornock, who works as Principal Technical Animator for The Initiative, mentions integrating MetaHuman faces into the pipeline. Along with “pushing the main body deformation with extra focus given to hands,” Thornock also worked with Humain (which creates face and body rigs) to develop a “streamlined and properly interpolating RBF for Unreal.”
MetaHuman has showcased incredible potential since its introduction, as seen with the recent facial animation trailer by Ninja Theory for Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. The Initiative seems to be going for the same degree of realistic animation. The part about “body deformation,” particularly hands, is interesting though how it could impact gameplay remains to be seen.
Perfect Dark doesn’t have a release date, but it’s in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.