Perfect Dark studio has lost half of its staff – now less than 50 employees

metro.co.uk:

The future of the Perfect Dark reboot could be in jeopardy as numerous key employees have quit the project over the last 12 months.

Nobody was expecting the Perfect Dark reboot to release any time soon, considering it was only unveiled in late 2020, with a brief cinematic trailer and no gameplay footage.

Since then, however, the project may have experienced a soft reboot, as a large number of key employees at developer The Initiative have left over the past 12 months.

As first reported by VGC, the studio has suffered a worryingly large turnover of staff, with roughly half its employees quitting and bringing the overall total down to less than 50 – well below the average you’d expect for a modern, big budget game.

Losing a large number of employees is concerning enough, but those who’ve left include the game director, design director, lead level designer, two senior writers, the technical director, the lead animator, and the QA lead.

As for what triggered these departures, the former employees point to conflict between staff and the heads of the project. While The Initiative’s website talks of a ‘collaborative, thoughtful and self-aware environment,’ it’s said that studio head Neil Gallagher runs things from a more top-down approach.

Many senior staff felt they lacked creative autonomy in the design process and weren’t heard on key issues. This led to ‘painfully’ slow development and a lack of a solid company culture.

‘Making games is hard enough, let alone when you feel like you can’t get through to people making the decisions that affect everyone,’ says one anonymous source.

The writing was arguably on the wall when Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics, which is owned by Square Enix, was brought in to assist with development.