Development is going well, but Playground doesn’t want to show anything until it’s ready, even if figures like Booty want to. At PAX West 2022, the latter said (transcription via IGN), “Part of my job is giving air cover to the team. They don’t want to show stuff early before it’s ready to go, but if there’s one game where that’s kind of flipped around, where every time I see something I say, ‘We should show this’, it’s Fable. Because there’s a lot of cool stuff.”

Overall, “the team has made it very clear that I am not going to be able to show anything until it’s ready.” Nevertheless, Booty said the developer is using the same “craft and dedication that they brought to Forza Horizon.” While acknowledging a racing game developer working on Fable as “a bit of a head-scratcher,” Playground Games has “proven that they get it.”

Fable is in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC. Recently, writer Anna Megill, who joined Playground as a lead writer last year, was made the narrative lead. In addition to being the narrative lead for Remedy’s Control, she also worked on Arkane Studios’ Dishonored: Death of the Outsider and Massive’s The Division 2. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

The Initiative is working with Crystal Dynamics, a partnership which will continue despite the latter being acquired by The Embracer Group. Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty recently spoke at PAX West 2022 regarding the collaboration and refuted rumors of development issues. “How we make games is evolving. The idea of a single team under one roof doesn’t happen all that often anymore.

“Our Perfect Dark team down in Santa Monica… So we just did this big partnership with Crystal Dynamics. And I read online like, ‘Oh, this must mean there’s a problem or something.’ It’s quite the opposite. You’ve got this veteran team at Crystal Dynamics, a big triple-A team with over 100 people that becomes available.

“Of course, we want to work with them, particularly if they’ve made a game like that.” Booty also provided examples of titles like Age of Empires 4 and Microsoft Flight Simulator developed in collaboration with studios like Relic Entertainment and Asobo.

As for how one goes about rebooting Joanna Dark for the modern age, Booty said, “Very carefully.” “Those things don’t always age well, and I think what’s super cool about Perfect Dark – what’s super cool about Joanna Dark – is the super agent fantasy. Sort of Bourne Identity, James Bond, kind of thing. That’s a cool meme that people want to lean into, but again, we’ve gotta make sure that comes forward in the right way.”

Perfect Dark doesn’t have a release date but it’s in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC, along with launching on Game Pass. No gameplay has been showcased thus far either, so we’ll need to wait for more details. Stay tuned in the meantime.

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