{"id":306878,"date":"2025-12-09T12:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T12:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/306878\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T12:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T12:13:09","slug":"xbox-ruthlessly-cancelled-perfect-dark-but-take-two-just-hired-its-directors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/306878\/","title":{"rendered":"Xbox Ruthlessly Cancelled Perfect Dark, But Take-Two Just Hired Its Directors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"Is Take-Two Going to Try and Make Its Own Perfect Dark? Well, It Just Hired the Directors 1\" href=\"https:\/\/images.pushsquare.com\/91416000b1d64\/is-take-two-going-to-try-and-make-its-own-perfect-dark-well-it-just-hired-the-directors-1.large.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/is-take-two-going-to-try-and-make-its-own-perfect-dark-well-it-just-hired-the-directors-1.900x.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" alt=\"Is Take-Two Going to Try and Make Its Own Perfect Dark? Well, It Just Hired the Directors 1\"\/><\/a> Image: Push Square<\/p>\n<p>For whatever reason, Take-Two loves the version of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/games\/xbox-series-x\/perfect_dark\" class=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Perfect Dark<\/a> that The Initiative had cooking. In fact, it\u2019s just hired the shuttered studio\u2019s boss Darrell Gallagher and the game\u2019s director Brian Horton.<\/p>\n<p>So, some background to this story first.<\/p>\n<p>You may recall that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/news\/2025\/09\/xboxs-perfect-dark-was-very-nearly-rescued-by-a-third-party-publisher\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft cancelled its long-in-development Perfect Dark reboot<\/a> earlier this year, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/news\/2025\/07\/mass-xbox-layoffs-begin-everwild-and-perfect-dark-both-cancelled\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shuttered the studio<\/a> before it shipped a single game.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">Earlier this year I broke the news that Take-Two was close to rescuing Xbox\u2019s Perfect Dark but the deal fell apart.<\/p>\n<p>Now, a new development: Take-Two has hired Perfect Dark studio head Darrell Gallagher and director Brian Horton to start a brand new studio within 2K.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp?ref_src=embed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social)<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp\/post\/3m7izaecnvc2j?ref_src=embed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2025-12-08T21:51:37.009Z<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But a report from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/news\/2025\/09\/xboxs-perfect-dark-was-very-nearly-rescued-by-a-third-party-publisher\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bloomberg scribe Jason Schreier<\/a> revealed that Take-Two had come close to saving the project, although talks ultimately broke down over who would eventually own the IP.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Schreier has <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp\/post\/3m7izaecnvc2j?ref_src=embed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">revealed<\/a> that Take-Two has recruited two of the project\u2019s top talents and formed a new studio under its 2K Games umbrella. The only conclusion we can draw here is that it wants to continue work on that Perfect Dark game, although presumably under a new name.<\/p>\n<p>We suspect it\u2019s going to have to start from scratch, so it\u2019ll be years before we see any progress. But heck, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/news\/2025\/09\/xboxs-perfect-dark-was-very-nearly-rescued-by-a-third-party-publisher\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">that original vertical slice looked promising<\/a>, so hopefully it can ship an actual product this time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text source\">[source <a class=\"external\" title=\"External Link: https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp\/post\/3m7izaecnvc2j?ref_src=embed\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp\/post\/3m7izaecnvc2j?ref_src=embed\" target=\"_blank\">bsky.app<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>\tSee Also<\/p>\n<p class=\"avatar\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1759573209_524_avatar.jpg\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Sammy Barker\"\/><\/p>\n<p>As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He\u2019s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: Push Square For whatever reason, Take-Two loves the version of Perfect Dark that The Initiative had cooking.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[22943,59,555,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-306878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-2k-games","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-industry","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}