One of the sour notes of Microsoft's deep restructuring of Xbox, in addition to the thousands of workers laid off, was the cancellation of several major projects, the biggest of which was the Perfect Dark reboot, which went down the drain along with the entire The Initiative studio. And now we have new details of both what they had in store and the plans to save the project, which also failed to come to fruition.
It all comes from an interview in The Gamer with the actress who voiced and motion-captured the character, Alix Wilton Regan. In the interview, the former voice of Alt Cunningham in Cyberpunk: 2077 reveals that her work as Joanna Dark began in 2023, intensified throughout 2024, and continued until early 2025, when things started to go awry.
"I was as shocked, surprised and devastated as everyone else when the funding was pulled and the studio closed," Wilton-Regan commented, stating that she learned of the studio's fate at the same time as'everyone else, when it was publicly announced. "I didn't see it coming. I was completely taken by surprise when the project was cut off from funding. It was devastating. A lot of people lost their jobs. A whole staff was dissolved.
The actress also acknowledges that she was aware of conversations from members of the studio to try to save the project "even if it was on a small scale". This corresponds with reports that Crystal Dynamics tried to continue with the project, and Take Two was also interested, although that negotiation fell through, despite the game's directors having been brought in by Take-Two to set up a new studio.
Do you think we'll ever hear of The Initiative's Perfect Dark again from another team?