Following the arrival of Crystal Dynamics on the reboot of Xbox last year, many members of The Initiative would have packed up. The Initiative would have lost the lead on the project.
Since the departure of the director of the Perfect Dark project at The Initiative, an Xbox studio, it has been a stampede announced. In a few days, tongues were loosened and multiple sources announced a massive wave of resignations. VGC was the first to announce 48 hours ago that nearly half of the reboot project’s core team have left the company.
In addition to the game director, we find the creative director, the head of level design, several designers of the world or mechanics, or even two of the main scriptwriters. The Initiative would now have less than fifty people with departures that would have started when Crystal Dynamics was signed as co-developer of the project.
A potential failure in Matt Booty’s strategy who declared at the time that the young studio would only be dedicated to “enormous” titles, qualified as “quad A”. The ambition was perhaps too big, especially since other insiders have confirmed the bleeding since yesterday. The journalist Andy Robinson (VGC) announced “two confirmed new starts” and the game now in the hands of Crystal Dynamics only.
Finally, according to Jez Corden of Windows Centralthe rupture comes from a deep disagreement about how to work on this reboot of Perfect Dark. Particularly within The Initiative studio itself, separated into two ideologies: those in favor of remaining a small independent studio aided by outsourcing, and the others in favor of a large recruitment. Finally, if the arrival of Crystal Dynamics were to improve development time, the consequences seem to be quite different.
Initiative update: I’ve added 2 more confirmed departures to the list (and corroborating a few more).
If it wasn’t obvious already, multiple sources have now suggested to me that Crystal Dynamics is essentially leading this project.https://t.co/LZPQDNJvIJ
—Andy Robinson (@AndyPlaytonic) March 16, 2022
