One of 2025’s grimmer themes seems to be a perennial one for the games industry: mass layoffs. One of the very worst examples came in July, when Microsoft laid off around 9,000 people in total, alongside shuttering several studios and in-development projects, perhaps most notably the Perfect Dark reboot being co-developed by The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics.
Behind the scenes, developers at The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics were desperately trying to save the project, but these efforts would come to naught: a last-ditch attempt involving publisher Take-Two collapsed when no agreement could be reached over the IP rights. There was also debate over how much of the ace-looking reveal had been smoke-and-mirrors, with one dev angrily refuting the idea there wasn’t a game there.
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The actor goes on to discuss the efforts to keep Perfect Dark alive, and the realisation that the Take-Two rescue deal had fallen through.
“That was the day I was really sad because that was the day I lost hope,” says Wilton Regan. “I couldn’t say too much about it because I knew The Initiative was in talks to keep Perfect Dark up and running in some shape or form. Possibly a slimmed-down version, possibly something slightly different.
“But certainly, everyone was working really hard behind the scenes to bring Perfect Dark back. And then one day, I heard from the creative director that the deal hadn’t gone through, and that really everything had fallen apart, and production was fully stopping.”
Some good did come of the Take-Two discussions, at least: earlier this month it was announced that The Initiative’s studio head Darrell Gallagher and the game’s director Brian Horton have joined the publisher to start a new studio.
Meanwhile, Wilton Regan has another major role to keep her busy: she’s Lara Croft in two new Tomb Raider games, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis (a “reimagining” of the first game) as well as the new adventure Tomb Raider: Catalyst.
“The saving grace for me when Perfect Dark fell apart was that I’d already been shooting Lara for about a year as well,” says Wilton Regan. “I was playing Joanna over here, and I was playing Lara over here, which was wonderful and genuinely one of the most creatively exciting times of my life. And I just felt so relieved that I still had Lara, but I also felt really frightened about losing Lara. I’m still frightened of losing Lara.”
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