I never played the original Perfect Dark, but the trailer for the reboot shown during this evening's Xbox Games Showcase instantly made it the most exciting game I've seen during not-E3. It's first-person, it's got stealth, it's got parkour, it's got hand-to-hand melee combat including slidekicks. It looks like a mashup of Mirror's Edge and something more immersive sim-y? What's not to like.
Cor, when was the last time a big new first-person game looked to have this kind of systemic flexibility. I'm partly just relieved to see a game trailer that looks like a game, and not a cutscene that looks years away from being playable. Although, notably, there was no release date at the end of this gameplay trailer not even a year.
This new Perfect Dark was announced back in 2020, without much real information about the game at the time other than that it was being developed by a new Microsoft studio, The Initiative. Since then it's apparently hit some development snags, and external studio (and Tomb Raider reboot gang) Crystal Dynamics have come onboard as co-developers.
I will wait however long I need to in order to shimmy down a drainpipe and slidekick some men in the shins.
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