Crystal Dynamics Will Still Co-Develop Perfect Dark Reboot After Embracer Group Acquisition

The Initiative has confirmed that it’ll still be working with Crystal Dynamics on the upcoming reboot of Perfect Dark after Crystal Dynamics was acquired by Embracer Group. Following Embracer’s announcement that it had purchased the Tomb Raider studio–as well as Eidos-Montreal and Square Enix Montreal in the sale–The Initiative tweeted that work with Crystal Dynamics was continuing.

“We’re excited to see Crystal Dynamics take these next steps with their studio,” it said. “Our teams have made great progress in building Perfect Dark together as co-development partners, and we will be continuing this work with them in their next chapter.”

Perfect Dark was announced in December 2020 and has been described as a “first-person spy thriller” for Xbox. There has been some upheaval at The Initiative lately as the core development team was hit by a number of senior departures–including its two most senior writers–according to recent reports.

Multiple former senior developers claimed that the slow development pace combined with a lack of creative autonomy were some of the reasons behind their departures, although The Initiative responded to these reports by saying that new hires have the project back on track. For more on why Microsoft has adopted an unusual approach for the next Perfect Dark game, you can check out Xbox Studios boss Matt Booty’s comments on how that arrangement came to be.

As for Square Enix, it plans to invest further into blockchain, cloud, and AI technologies once the sale of its studios has concluded later this year.