Perfect Dark Dev The Initiative Reportedly Seen a 'Fast and Furious' Wave of Departures - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 April 2022 / 2,843 Views
Microsoft in June 2018 announced the formation of a new first-party Xbox studio, The Initiative and in December 2020 announced the studio has been working on a new entry in the Perfect Dark series for the Xbox Series X|S and PC. In September of last year it was revealed Tomb Raider studio, Crystal Dynamics, is co-developing Perfect Dark.
It does appear that nearly half of the core team at The Initiative working on Perfect Dark has left the company, or around 34 employees, according to VideoGamesChronicle.
Departures include design director Drew Murray, game director Dan Neuburger, lead level designer Chris O’Neill, principal world builder Jolyon Myers, two senior system designers, and more. LinkedIn shows the studio how has less than 50 employees and has only three job openings.
Former senior developers said the "lack of creative autonomy and slow development progress" as reasons for their departures and described the people leaving as "fast and furious."
The Initiative studio head Darrell Gallagher told VideoGamesChronicle he is confident the team they have in place and wit the new talent joining.
"It’s no small task to build a studio and reinvent a beloved franchise," said Gallagher. "In creating The Initiative, we set out to leverage co-development partnerships to achieve our ambitions, and we’re really excited about all the progress we’re seeing with our relationship with Crystal Dynamics.
"In this journey, it’s not uncommon for there to be staffing changes, especially during a time of global upheaval over the last two years, and there’s plenty more work in front of us to deliver a fantastic Perfect Dark experience to our players.
"We wish all our former colleagues the very best, and I’m confident in the team we have in place, the new talent joining, and we can’t wait to share more with the fans."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Microsoft has a weird habit of reviving franchises with no connection to the original development team. The issue is that having the franchise name and lore isn’t what makes a good game, so I always go in with a healthy skepticism because these particular teams have yet to prove their ability to live up to the name of the original titles. Even post-Bungie Halos have had major issues even with part of the original team involved.
What about all the studios that are ran great under MS? Every company has issues with a select few companies under their belt. Its nothing new to the world of buisness.
It seems you havn't read aiwass statement because you miss his point completely.
That certainly doesn't seem like a positive news.
Less than 50 employees after founding the studio in 2018! That's such a shame, and only 3 job openings. Is Microsoft not taking this new studio seriously?
The employees that have left actually blame the management of the studio (including the Game Director who also left last month) and not Microsoft. They were surprised how hands off Microsoft has been. But you are right, Matt Booty runs Xbox Game Studios and he really should be intervening and asking what is going on. A major shakeup in leadership may be needed.
Being hand off is certainly good, but you can't be so hands off that you aren't aware and don't solve the problems in a studio you opened yourself.
100%! Microsoft's unwillingness to shake up leadership when it's needed has hurt them. 343 comes to mind lol
People complained when MS were too hands on and now people complain that they arent hands on.
The studio was never meant to be a huge studio, it was more about the quality of staff not the quantity.
But how long would it take to remake a beloved game with 50 employees? I'm assuming 50 of them aren't developers, some must be from HR, Finance, and other departments.
No idea. From what i heard, the Initiative was designed to create ideas while only building the skeleton of the games, they werent meant to do all the chore work. It was said that the Initiative wanted to stay small.
With 30ish studios under their belt once the Activision deal closes, it might not make business sense to put a whole lot of effort into salvaging something like The Initiative, if it isn't working. There are a bunch of other studios with strong track records. Maybe just concentrate on building those teams.
Maybe. But i think it would send the wrong message. Might make a lot of senior talent want to jump ship specially on this current market.
I dont think perfect dark is coming any time soon. This is somewhat what happened to crackdown 3. It passed studio hands twice if i remember correctly.
Studio is pretty much dead after this. It will probably be closed after Crystal bandages it up as much as they can to release something over the next few years. AAAA studio to AA studio in a short period of time. I am not surprised though as MS has alot of problems managing their own studios which is why they take the easy route and just buy established ones.
And seems like even making AAA is hard for them.
Damn press always hunting for headlines.
The next Crackdown fiasco
Never said it was. But Crackdown 3 stopped and restarted development a couple of times with different devs and kept getting delayed. That sounds like what might happen here. Delayed and delayed and what comes out will be a mess. MS has not been great at managing studios and projects.
Crackdown 3s issues was the tech behind it. With MS doing a 180 on the XB1, so did the Cloud technology that was suppose to drive that game.
It was just a bad game with an outdated concept of open-world games. They made a worse version of a game from 2007 that now feels very dated. Oh, and CD3 physics are worse in 3 than 1.
Yes thats because the game was suppose to you Cloud processing. Due to this not being ready, the game was salvage into a generic openworld game. Basically a quick fix and release instead of cancelling the entire game. PD isnt going through this issue, its going through a staffing issue which seems to be taken care of with CD being brought in.
What do you think Sony has done? As far as built from the ground up studios, Sony and Microsoft are about even with all other studios purchased. It seems the bigger problem is Microsoft's unwillingness to shakeup management when needed. Employees that have been leaving blame The Initiative's management and not Microsoft. They were even pointing out how hands off Microsoft has been with the studio to let them do what they want to do.
Btw, AAAA was from a job listing by a recruiter trying to hype things up. It was never coined by Microsoft or the studios marketing.
Makes more sense now why Crystal Dynamics came on board. To do the brunt of the development.
I was wondering why the game was still considered to be early in development when the partnership was announced back in September. With Gallagher having led CD for 13 years before creating this new studio, Microsoft may as well purchase CD and merge them into The Initiative. Or, the studio might take the Worlds Edge approach and be more caretakers of the Perfect Dark IP and partnering with different studios for each new game.
Either way, it's disappointing to see Microsoft's built from the ground up AAA studio faltering. And not by any fault of their own. Employees that have left The Initiative pointed out how hands off Microsoft has been. At a certain point though, Matt Booty has to step in and ask Gallagher what the hell is going on.
CD is owned by SquEnix. If they are able just to commission them to help make or develop the game as a foundation (irony here if they are using CD's engine :P) to then allow Initiative gain experience to develop sequels in the future, that might be a better option. Initiative can grow based on Perfect Dark's success when commissioning CD do much of the early work is less of a risk?
So,
Darrell Gallagher, head at The Initiative, is also the former head of Crystal Dynamics.
AND he's on the executive leadership team and Microsoft Studios.
When Gallagher's old boys at CD are brought back in to assist, on special order from MS, it's not too surprising that the rest of the core at The Initiative could end up feeling overruled and underappreciated.
And their own created 1st party studio has bite the dust, time to rely on square and Zenimax hahaha
It hasnt "bit the dust" read the article.
"Lack of creative autonomy" is the key phrase here to me.
How is this a suprised for them? All of MS studios seem to be slaves to a single ip. I would not be suprised if we get another forza horizon before fable comes out.
Slaves? Man you have no idea. The studios are built that way. The employees arent stuck thier. They would be stupid to accept a job at 343 not knowing they be working on Halo.
Also your point is invalid. Coalition are rumoured to be making a new IP, and Playground has already proven you wrong by making Fable.
They are built to destroy creative freedom. Did you miss what I said about fable? If your going by rumors the initiative had a brand new game in developement and Phil said him and his daughter played it amd loved it. And look where we are now.
Dude, you really don't understand. That's the point of those companies. They don't rely on creative freedom, its not needed. They are built to create content for dedicated IPs. If staff don't want to work on those IPs than they are working for the wrong companies. MS own plenty of companies with creative freedom that they can move to like Obsidian or Bethesda etc.
The fact you use words like "Slaves" and "built to destroy creative freedom" makes me worry about you. Might as well complain about farmers working on farms milking cows asking why don't they have creative freedom and do other things.
Also Playground games is working on Fable, why does it matter if they make another Forza Horizon? Of course they will, they were doing it from the very beginning before MS even owned them. Are you going to complain about Sony "forcing" Blue Point games in only focusing on remakes? Of course not.
Or they can leave the company entirely like these 34 did. Because for them to be complaining about it means that they where probably promised that from the begining.
Maybe, we don't know. From what everyone is saying is they had too many chefs in the kitchen which can lead to a clash of heads.
Go watch Hells Kitchen and you will see what i mean.
Personally, I was way more interested in The Initiative and their work than I was in Microsoft's recent acquisition of Activision. Now? I don't know. If the reason this game's development is slow is because the developer's ideas are too imaginative for the publisher and keep getting shot down...well that just leaves me with less interest in whatever this Perfect Dark reboot winds up being. I want people to make games that they actually want to play themselves, not games that are designed just to sell as many copies as possible.
Must be the Perfect Dark curse. The OG N64 game also had plenty of departures which led to Free Radical being created who went on to make Time Splitters. However during development, it didnt stop the game from being a masterpiece either.
If the developers arent dedicated to the project and want to produce a game in a hurry than its best they disappear and find another job. Passionate and dedicated employees is the difference between a masterpiece and a average game.
Most studios have gone trough a long learning curve before they can produce AAA games it will be no different with the Initiative. All that matters is that Microsoft have the commitment to keep them around and keep acquiring the right staff to make quality games. Naughty dogs and Nintendo studios have been around since 1980's there is a reason these studios are in a class of their own.
Microsoft have been in gaming for over 30 years already, and if your team isn't up there for AAA games why them will you go and claim you are doing AAAA game?
Huge difference between being in gaming for 30 years and having a 30 years old mature studios... Almost all of Microsoft studios were establish in 2000s and for the longest time Microsoft only funded 3rd party game not really building up their own studios.
MS had the time and the money to do that for the past 30 years, so excusing a multibillion dollar for taking the easy way for 25 years of just partnering and funding titles instead of building its team to them give more excuses for poor management and lack of maturity of studios isn't a good way thing.
AAAA was mentioned by a recruiter in a job listing. It was never a term coined by Microsoft or by the marketing team at the studio.
So we go from Azznation that wants to use individual employees bad mouth as representatives from companies to you wanting to use official job listing made by MS with revision from leadership to not be representative of what they are intending (because well if they didn't intend to make what is on the listing that would be false advertisement to prospective employees).
I'm just telling you what happened with the AAAA confusion lol. It may have been a lone wolf recruiter thinking they could've guaranteed to get someone onboard, or it could've been a typo. Either way, by the time the mistake was changed, multiple gaming news sites had already ran with it.
https://twitter.com/JezCorden/status/1441209766861176850
Yep saw Azz mentioning that it was a typo, that is certainly forgivable. There is only the Metro Redux team that claim their games are AAAA. I probably never saw before the correction gave by the director. My bad on not being informed.
People jumped on MS for what that employee did. See my point now?
Again you fail to see diference, between official communication (a job post is approved by leadership as well as the description, and sure the correction afterwards) on their site versus a single low level employee venting on the social network.
An error made by a human mistake is different to an arrogant employee downplaying another game from another company. Both work for companies and both get exposed when stuff like this happens. Everyone jumped on MS for that error even though he wasn't the PR guy for the business. People relate to professional employees by the companies they work for. That's why they need to be careful what they say and do when under big brand names.
Would more likely being more than one employee, but sure an employee making a mistake is nothing new and isn't even grave in this case, so after it was corrected all is good and company didn't took a downfall. But you push for guerilla being directly responsible, you know you are just pushing it because it was a Sony company.
You know it wasnt just a GG employee right? If you read my thread it was about 2 employees and one worked for Ubisoft. Strange how that doesn't bother you but the GG employee does. You are being bias here.
And if you made them let them die.
You mean how Sony opperates too?
Turn 10 and the Coalition smile at you ;)
Facts, they created them and they are quite successful. So your point is pointless.
Could be. But the only garanty is that is very far off. I don't expect anything for another 2-3 years.
So would you be saying the same thing for Metroid Prime 4?
That's what most likely happened as well. But at the very least it came back to retro who originated the ip. So its on the best hands possible now.
I cant see a difference. People leaving midway through projects dont always affect the end game, the original PD64 had the exact same issue and look how that turned out.
Why is MP4 any different, its also changing its hands. Both games arent in a rush to release and both are early development
Again. Because its returning to retro who created the originals. What better assurance could there be?
Its no proof at all. Does Retro even have the same team who made the OG Prime games? Just because its back in Retro's hands doesn't mean its an instant hit. You can argue the exact same thing with PD going to CD who rebooted the TR series and did a hell of a job on it.
Keep that same energy.
No game is a garanty hit. But retro wont be making a reboot. They be making a sequel to a game they created. At the very least you can expect them to make a game in line with the series. CD are dipping their toes into something new. After they seem to be handed a mess by the initiative. Could still be good but they are starting from a bad point.
CD are great at doing Reboots with a Female lead so they are more than qualified to give Joanna Dark the treatment she deserves, much like they did with Lara Croft.
You are now gona judge their history of tomb raider? Because ot has a female lead? Why not avengers? There are multiple female leads? Since when does 1 game judge a studio?
I have no ideia why the qualifier of female lead even matter for their ability to make a reboot. And well if he is putting his bet on CD it is basically confessing The Initiative itself isn't up to much. And here I thought that CD was brought in just to help not to make all by themselves.
Don, you cant be this thick. CD rebooted Lara, no difference to how they can reboot Joanna. If you see the work they put into the new TR games than you would agree that CD are perfect for a title like Perfect Dark.
Also you have no idea what the Initiative is doing. Neither do i so i would stop trying to fear mongering people in believe doom and gloom. You honestly don't believe 50+ high qualified staff members are just sitting around doing nothing and getting paid? Than again i wouldn't be surprised.
Because TR and PD are reboots with the main lead being female. It shows they have experience in this project.
This is probably the most ridiculous I ever heard. What exactly does female means to a game? Does it take something special to be a female? Does it change the game? Is it mechanic? A genre? Does it use diferent code? On engine desighn for females? UE5 V.Female?
It means CD know how to work with female leads and bringing the best out of them. Hence the TR reference. I can't believe i had to explain that to you. There is more to building games than just coding.
