Perfect Dark’s director has left The Initiative… again
This is the second time the game's director has left the studio, throwing the status of the game into question.
It seems that the Perfect Dark reboot has lost its director — again. Dan Neuburger has seemingly left The Initiative, the Xbox-owned company responsible for the reboot announced in late 2020. We don’t know where he’s headed from here, but it’s caused murmurs about the state of the project.
ResetEra forum user Klobrille first noted an update to Neuburger’s LinkedIn profile that lists him as an ex-Initiative employee. It appears that Neuburger, previously a game director for Crystal Dynamics (oddly enough, the company working on Perfect Dark with The Initiative) left the studio sometime in February. Neuburger and The Initiative haven’t officially confirmed the news yet, though.
This isn’t the first time a director on the Perfect Dark reboot has left the company. Drew Murray, the game’s original director, left the project in February 2021 for personal reasons, rejoining his former company Insomniac Games.
The Perfect Dark director exit: what does this mean?
Obviously, without official confirmation from Neuburger or The Initiative, it’s important to take this with a grain of salt. But it still begs the question: if this is true, what does this mean for Perfect Dark? Klobrille outlined a theory about The Initiative in their post about Neuburger’s LinkedIn update:
It looks like it’s [The Initiative] basically a studio that kicks off a project and carries it through concept, prototype, and full pre-production phases, then [carries] it over to full-production with assistance of another studio that has the needed manpower, in this case Crystal Dynamics. That also explains the “staying small & agile” comment and also… the studio’s name.
Klobrille, ResetEra
Naturally, an announcement such as this would make eager fans uneasy, but if Klobrille’s theory is correct, this might just be part of the natural cycle and the game is still on schedule. Thankfully, we may not have to wait for too long to find out about that second part. It’s been rumored that Microsoft will show the game off at E3 2022, finally giving us a glimpse into this long-awaited title.
What do you think Perfect Dark’s change in directors means for the game? Do you think we’ll see the game shown off at this year’s E3 conference? Let us know!
