With the trajectory Microsoft’s on, there’s a good chance its cancelled Perfect Dark game would have come to the PS5 anyway. But now word has emerged that the project was almost saved by a third-party publisher, which would have effectively guaranteed a PlayStation release.
The ever-reliable Jason Schreier reports on Bloomberg that Take-Two was in talks to rescue the reboot, before disputes over IP ownership caused the conversations to collapse.
Those of you who followed this project will know that, prior to its cancellation, Tomb Raider maker Crystal Dynamics was parachuted in to assist shuttered studio The Initiative with its development.
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Crystal Dynamics is owned by Embracer, who took the title to Take-Two in an attempt to salvage it, following a wave of devastating Xbox layoffs earlier in the year.
The publisher was apparently willing to fund the rest of the project and release it, but the deal collapsed due to a dispute with IP owner Microsoft over who would retain the long-term rights to the Perfect Dark property.
The outcome is that The Initiative has been closed, Crystal Dynamics has gone through a round of layoffs, and Perfect Dark has been locked away in Microsoft’s abandoned IP vault. We’re not entirely sure why the company insisted on owning the series when it’s unlikely to ever do anything with it again, but that’s its prerogative, we suppose.
So, there you have it – Perfect Dark was almost saved, but now it’s definitely dead.