Analysis: Who’s working on the new Perfect Dark?

Veterans of the industry’s premier third-person action games are working on the new Perfect Dark at Xbox’s The Initiative studio.

Perfect Dark was announced during The Game Awards this week, finally confirming what the new first-part studio is creating, and VGC analysis has offered some context on the people behind the reboot.

Established in 2018, The Initiative is led by Darrell Gallagher, the former Activision development boss and head of Crystal Dynamics, developer of the Tomb Raider series.

In the years since, the Santa Monica, California-based outfit has grown its team with talent from studios including Naughty Dog, Infinity Ward, Santa Monica Studio and Blizzard.

Given the extensive experience its staff has on series like Tomb Raider, God of War and Uncharted, it’s likely that Perfect Dark will feature third-person elements, though its Xbox game page lists it  as a first-person shooter.

In a developer video, reference is made to how the game will differ from “what you would see in a traditional first-person shooter”, but Microsoft‘s marketing has so far only described the game as “a secret agent thriller”.

In charge of the project are game director Daniel Neuburger, who was a game director on the Tomb Raider series, and design director Drew Murray, who was the lead designer of Insomniac’s Sunset Overdrive.

The Initiative has also hired a group of God of War designers for Perfect Dark. Chris O’Neill is Perfect Dark’s lead level designer, and The Initiative’s director of production, Brian Westergaard, also worked on God of War as senior managing producer.

Sean Slayback, who was most recently principal weapons designer at Respawn, is Perfect Dark’s lead systems designer. Slayback worked on Titanfall 1 & 2, plus various Call of Duty titles including Modern Warfare 2, and designed and implemented most weapons in Apex Legends.

Christine Thompson, who wrote the campaigns for Destiny 2 and Destiny: Rise of Iron, as well as various expansions, is Perfect Dark’s narrative lead.

Christian Cantamessa, the lead designer of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption, is Perfect Dark’s cinematics director. Cantamessa previously co-wrote and directed all of the cinematic sequences for Monolith’s Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor.

In art, Perfect Dark’s lead is Jason Priest, the former art director for 2011’s Homefront and lead environment artist for Insomniac’s Spider-Man. Ironically, Priest also worked on 2004’s GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, a spiritual successor to the classic FPS which Perfect Dark followed.

Eric Persson, previously the lead concept artist for Dice’s Battlefield series, is Perfect Dark’s associate art director.

Lee Davis, a ten-year veteran of Sony studio Naughty Dog, is Perfect Dark’s lead animator. Davis most recently was in charge of melee animation in The Last of Us Part 2.

Tyler Thornock, the lead technical director for Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, is Perfect Dark’s principal technical animator.

The Initiative currently has six open positions, including for a game design manager and lead VFX artist.

It’s not yet clear if any of the original Perfect Dark team members will be involved in the new game. However, original developer Rare is likely to provide a small amount of production support for the project and Kenn Lobb, who produced the game at Nintendo, is now creative director of Xbox Game Studios.

further reading

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Xbox has officially announced a new Perfect Dark from The Initiative

New Xbox studio finally announces its debut project at The Game Awards

The Perfect Dark dev team (Dec 2020)