Over 100 Crystal Dynamics devs are helping ‘The Initiative’ with Perfect Dark reboot

It is quite common nowadays for video games to be worked on by multiple teams across different studios. That being said, these collaborations typically occur between studios which fall under the same corporate umbrella. It is therefore interesting to see that over 100 Crystal Dynamics devs are assisting Xbox studio The Initiative with their upcoming Perfect Dark reboot.

The Perfect Dark reboot was first announced at the tail end of 2020, with brand new Xbox studio The Initiative announced to be working on this ‘AAAA’ title. In order to meet the game’s lofty expectations, Xbox reached out to industry veterans at Crystal Dynamics for assistance.

During a recent talk at PAX East, Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty offered fans some insight into the game’s development and the collaboration between The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics, saying (as transcribed by Eurogamer) “We just did this big partnership with Crystal Dynamics and I read online that this must mean there's a problem. It's quite the opposite.”

Booty continued, “You've got this veteran team at Crystal Dynamics, a big AAA team with over a hundred people that becomes available – of course we want to work with them, particularly if they've made a game like that before.”

For context, Crystal Dynamics as a studio consists of over 300 employees, meaning that roughly one third of the entire team has been lent out to Microsoft to assist with the Perfect Dark reboot – not an insignificant number.

The Initiative has seen a wave of developers exit the studio over the past year, leaving the team consisting of roughly 50 employees, which is rather small when compared to most major studios.

Crystal Dynamics is a highly talented studio and so their involvement in Perfect Dark should hopefully lead to a better product overall. That being said, we will have to wait and see.

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KitGuru says: Are you surprised by the number of Crystal Dynamics devs helping with Perfect Dark? Does this give you more or less hope for the reboot? When do you think we will see the game next? Let us know down below.

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