Even with some notable staff departures over the years, the Perfect Dark reboot seemed all set up to cash-in on nostalgia for the cult hit franchise. Then in July 2025, both Perfect Dark and its co-developer, The Initiative, were shuttered as part of Microsoft bid to "adjust priorities", which included a staggering 9,000 employee layoffs.
Devastating news for employees at The Initiative, and a hard pill to swallow for both longtime Perfect Dark fans, and those who got excited after that incredible gameplay reveal at Xbox's 2024 Games Showcase. Although, even the authenticity of that footage has been under scrutiny since the news of the game's cancellation came out.
If you want the entire scoop about how Perfect Dark's cancellation went down, or you're just curious about what it could have been, then keep reading for everything we know (knew?) about the Perfect Dark reboot.
Perfect Dark is canceled
Over four years after its reveal at The Game Awards in 2020, Microsoft canceled its Perfect Dark reboot on July 2, 2025. On the same day, Perfect Dark's co-developer, The Initiative, was shut, and over 9,000 Microsoft employees were laid off.
In a leaked memo sent to staff, Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty claimed that all of this was happening because the corporation wanted to "adjust priorities and focus resources to set up our teams for greater success within a changing industry landscape."
Regardless if that's just painfully ironic corporate placating or not, the fact is that Perfect Dark is no longer coming out. Voice actor Alix Wilton Regan, who played main character Joanna Dark in the reboot, has since begun campaigning for Perfect Dark to be picked up elsewhere. Not a likely scenario, but we can dream, I suppose.
Apart from this being crushing news for all of the affected developers, the cancelation also sparked rumours about the veracity of Perfect Dark's impressive gameplay reveal at Xbox's 2024 Games Showcase when a prominent journalist shared on social media he'd been told the trailer "was basically fake".
However after this claim, developer Adam McDonald, who worked at The Initiative for three and a half years, disagreed with this statement.
"It is actually in-engine," said McDonald. "I was one of three level designers that worked on it. It worked best if you played it the way the person playing in the video plays it, but it still worked even if you didn't hit the marks perfectly." He then went on to explain that yes, "there's some fakery" but that "quite a lot of it was legit" and that it was a pretty typical affair for a 'vertical slice' of gameplay.
Guess we'll never find out for ourselves what the truth actually is.
What we can do, however, is provide you with all of the information about what the Perfect Dark reboot was supposed to be like. So if you want to lament over what could have been, keep reading.
Perfect Dark's gameplay trailer
Here's Perfect Dark's first and only gameplay trailer, so you can get sad about its cancelation all over again. You're welcome.
What was the story of Perfect Dark going to be?
The first game was set in 2023 and revolved around two alien races using Earth as a battleground. Yes, exactly like Transformers, although I promise you it was less silly about the whole thing.
The alien war is actually secondary to the main plot, which is the battle between Carrington Institute (good guys) and DataDyne (bad guys). DataDyne want to use the alien tech for general early ‘00s evilness, and you have to stop them while working for Carrington. As part of the story, you end up getting taken to the bad aliens' planet (the Skedar), where you defeat their leader, then fly away in a spaceship back to Earth. It was actually good, though. I promise.
The sequel, Perfect Dark Zero, was actually a prequel, so it’s the original Perfect Dark that will act as the jumping off point. The new Perfect Dark was described as being set in the “near future,” so it was going to take place a little while after the last games, but not too much longer. We knew the central character Joanna Dark—more on her below—was coming back too, so it made sense that it was going to follow on from where the series left off.
The game was going to be an “eco sci-fi,” where corporations (like dataDyne) had made the planet much greener and cleaner, but at a cost. In the reveal trailer, we seen a very lush, bountiful city in bloom, but also parts of Earth ravaged by fires and destruction. As the trailer ends, Joanna Dark has just cleared out (read: killed everyone inside) one of these green corps, and stands on the roof of the building, staring out as a lightning storm rages in the distance. The logo on the roof reveals this building to be dataDyne HQ.
It appears then that Perfect Dark was going to have something to say about climate change. A pity we can't see the nuance this might have added to the game's campaign setting.
Was it going to be a reboot? A remaster? A sequel? A prequel?
It definitely wasn't going to be a remaster. The new Perfect Dark had its own story, and while the developers talked about being inspired by the past, they also said they didn't want to use it “too much”. A prequel was unlikely too; it’s rare for a franchise which had been on ice for so long to decide to start things back up with a prequel instead of tearing forward and breaking new ground. Also, the “near future” setting wouldn’t fit; Perfect Dark was originally set in 2023, so a prequel would be in the “recent past”. Also also, two prequels in a row would have been a bit daft.
As for reboot or sequel, it seemed from what the developers said about keeping the game’s past in mind that it would have been a bit of both. It didn't seem like it would pick up on story threads from 2005’s game, but it didn't seem to be completely back to the drawing board either. It was going to be the same character fans knew and loved, with the same central antagonist, just with a brand new narrative.
Where the aliens coming back?
Almost certainly. The Skedar weren’t wiped out, just defeated, and the other aliens, the Maians, were still kicking about too. The first trailer even started in space, with the devs letting us know that the alien storyline wasn't being abandoned just yet. (Well, it is now the game has been cancelled...)
Who was the main character in Perfect Dark going to be?
Speaking of said character, that’s Joanna Dark. She’s codenamed Perfect Dark because of her perfect score on her aptitude tests (and her surname, obviously). Many sources contributed to Rare picking her name. As a trailblazing female hero, Joanna Dark was chosen as a name as a nod to Joan Of Arc, while her look was designed after ‘90s era Winona Ryder.
Her personality was supposed to take equal parts of La Femme Nikita and The X-Files’ Dana Scully, but she had a much bigger focus on tech than either of them; she approached situations more like Splinter Cell’s Sam Fisher. Oh, and she was designed by Martin Hollis, the director of GoldenEye 007, so it goes without saying that her gunplay was always supposed to be excellent.
What was the combat going to be like in Perfect Dark?
Sam Fisher meets GoldenEye is actually a pretty great way to describe it, if I do say so myself, but let's get a little more granular. It was going to be a first-person shooter, and one which generally had a very clean, uncluttered UI. Players would be encouraged to approach situations slowly, with stealth and timing more effective than a hail of bullets.
The new Perfect Dark's devs said they were “leaning very heavily on ‘what is a secret agent?’”, which suited Joanna’s more methodical approach to combat. They also said they were trying to “diversify” the gunplay by “differentiating spy fighting versus a traditional first person shooter.” From their interview at The Game Awards, it might have been that we were going to see a more action-oriented Joanna this time around, as the devs mentioned her sliding under or jumping over obstacles mid combat.
It looks like the new Perfect Dark was going to play up the “physicality” of the fights, while taking advantage of the increased scope available to devs these days, meaning more tech elements could have been incorporated. And that sounds like it would have been a good fit for Perfect Dark, which always had a big focus on gadgets and clever alternate fire modes for each weapon.
What platforms was Perfect Dark going to be released on?
Perfect Dark was going to come out on PC and Xbox Series X/S. We also wouldn't have been surprised if it ended up on PS5 too, seeing as prominent Xbox games have been coming to PlayStation more and more these days.
Although, that speculation is null and void now, in the wake of Perfect Dark's cancellation.
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