During The Game Awards 2020 it was revealed that The Initiative, one of the teams that are part of Xbox Game Studiosis working on a new game Perfect Dark, something that made more than one happy. However, more than two years after that revelation, all we’ve heard are developing problems. Now, a new report has revealed that most of the developers working in this studio have leftnot just the project, but The Initiative as a whole.
According to VGC, who analyzed different LinkedIn profiles and job applications for The Initiative, during the last year, about 34 people dropped out of this study. Discussed here are the departures of Dan Neuburger, Game Director, Drew Murray, Design Director, Chris O’Neill, Lead Level Designer, Jolyon Myers, Lead World Builder, two Senior System Designers, a group of three former designers of God of Warthe two top Perfect Dark writers, the technical project director, the technical art director, the lead game engineer, the lead animator, the QA lead, and more.
Along with this, it has been mentioned that in the last year only 12 people have been hired. Total, there is talk of a workforce of about 50 workers at this time. When questioned about this report, Darrell Gallagher, head of the study, commented the following:
“It is not an easy task to build a studio and reinvent a beloved franchise. In creating The Initiative, we set out to leverage co-development partnerships to achieve our ambitions, and we’re very excited about all the progress we’re seeing in our relationship with Crystal Dynamics.
In this journey, it’s not uncommon for staff to change, especially during a time of global turmoil over the last two years, and there’s a lot more work ahead to deliver a fantastic Perfect Dark experience for our players.
We wish all of our former colleagues the best, and I am confident in the team we have, in the new talent joining, and we can’t wait to share more with the fans.”
What caused these outputs? Okay, it appears that Crystal Dynamics’ involvement has caused a number of internal problems. As you know, during the month of September it was revealed that those responsible for the most recent installments of Tomb Raider had joined the development of Perfect Dark to provide support. However, the report has revealed that this caused a conflict with the way this project was being created.
Former employees have mentioned that many senior members of the team felt frustrated by a lack of autonomy and were not heard on key issues such as development priorities. Alongside this, management decisions by Gallagher and Neuburger, who were previously studio heads and game directors at Crystal Dynamics, meant development was “painfully” slow and a strong company culture never formed. Here is talk about a top-down structure, when employees were looking for the opposite.
Similarly, with the arrival of Crystal Dynamics, development was expected to move faster, but now it looks like this will be the studio with the heaviest workload. As if that were not enough, a ex-employee does not rule out the possibility of a soft rebootwhich would mean that there is still a long time to go before this project is finished.
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Editor’s Note:
Without a doubt, a complicated situation. It is already difficult to make a game of this level, now with a smaller team, and a series of internal problems, this will be even more complicated. At the end of the day, it all comes down to a positive work culture, something that seemed to be lacking at The Initiative.
Via: VGC