Update: 04-07-2025 00:05 -Perfect Dark level designer Adam McDonald has admitted on social mediathat there is “some fake stuff” in the game’s last trailer, but claims that multiple elements - such as the parkour and hacking system - were real.
Xbox just gave us arguably one of the worst daysthe games industry has ever seen in terms of studio closures and layoffs, withRare, Turn 10, and The Initiative all horribly impacted. In the case of the latter,the studio was closed down completely, and all work on the Perfect Dark reboot that it had been developing was immediately cancelled.
Naturally, news of Perfect Dark’s cancellation had many flocking back to the last time we actually saw the game in action,that being a gameplay reveal trailer during the Xbox Showcase back in 2024. It was a slick trailer, showcasing an interesting blend of traversal mechanics and combat, and it’s easy to feel bad about the game that could have been. However, it seems as though that trailer was a little too good to be true.
Perfect Dark’s 2024 Xbox Showcase Trailer Was “Basically Fake”
Shortly after the news broke that Perfect Dark had been cancelled, and The Initiative had been shut down,Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach claimed on BlueSkythat the gameplay reveal trailer that was shown off last year was “basically fake”. In a follow-up post, Gach claims that the trailer was “not indicative of the level of progress perceived to have been made on the game.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the entire trailer was a complete lie, as it’s most likely what The Initiative wanted Perfect Dark to look like when it launched, but it also means that the true state of the game was completely unknown to us before its cancellation. It’s easy to see a great-looking gameplay trailer and wonder why the game was cancelled at all, but it could have been much worse behind the scenes.
I guess this is also your reminder that just because a game looks good during a showcase, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will turn out that way when the game is ready for launch. If a game like Perfect Dark can be cancelled, despite getting a gameplay trailer a year ago, then nothing is really safe, and it’s worth keeping hype levels to a minimum until we get a release date for titles at least.
