Back in June 2024, I wrote about the return of Perfect Dark in the new reboot that was heading to Xbox Series X/S. For an old-school Rare & N64 fan like myself, the news was greatly appreciated. Joanna Dark had a cool new look (aka one that closely resembled a real person), and the initial launch trailer had us all feeling very excited. We needed a new spy game, and this was going to fulfil all of our wishes.
The game, however, was never destined to reach my hands. Xbox ultimately canceled the Perfect Dark reboot being worked on by studio 'The Initiative', and we went from an announcement back in 2020 to a trailer in 2024 and then, zilch. It sadly fell foul of Xbox's internal shuffle and studio shutdowns and, despite plans to try and save it from Take Two and the Embracer Group, the dream of a new Perfect Dark dissolved into nothingness.
Thanks to MP1st, who have come into possession of screenshots and information on the game from a former developer on the project, we now have a better idea of what the game would have been like, along with artwork that shows off some of the settings that Joanna would have encountered on her journey.
Joanna would have come back to us with some epic new abilities that would have put her right up there with other gaming femme fatales like Samus Aran. We're talking bullet-dodging abilities in the same vein as Max Payne and the Matrix, kill streaks that earned the player the ability to make special takedowns, and a new Adrenaline System.
This is the most documented new system in Joanna's arsenal, giving the player an adrenaline bar that replenishes over time, allowing you to pull off new moves and also heal yourself, a little like Jin Sakai's healing tokens in Ghost of Tsushima. All this would have been available in the game's first season - yes, they were planning to release this game incrementally, it seems. That would have wound me up no end; what happened to just giving us the whole game on a cartridge and letting us play, huh?
It's a huge shame that this game never got to see the light of day. The settings look incredible, and considering that the reboot was going to closely follow the DNA of the N64 title, it would have been the perfect nostalgic upgrade for gamers like me who grew up with the original.
Either way, at least we can have a look at the images in this article and dream about what could have been. That's better than nothing, and I hope one day someone gets a hold of this game and releases it just like they did with the unreleased Dinosaur Planet game for the N64!
