Following months of rumors and speculation, Microsoft officially announced the Perfect Dark reboot game at The Game Awards 2020. Developed by Microsoft's super team The Initiative, not much is known about the Perfect Dark reboot beyond that it will once again star Joanna Dark and is aiming for release on PC and Xbox Series X. Recently, the Perfect Dark reboot lost a key member of its team, but now it has added a producer who has worked on some of the industry's biggest games.
Rhonda Cox announced on her LinkedIn account that she has joined The Initiative to work on the Perfect Dark reboot as a Senior Producer. Prior to working on Perfect Dark, Cox worked as a Gameplay Features Producer on the 2018 God of War game. And as pointed out by Pure Xbox, Cox has also worked on games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and World of Warcraft, so her resume is quite impressive.
Cox's hiring is definitely a big "get" for The Initiative and bodes well for the Perfect Dark reboot, considering her track record. Now the question is when fans will actually get to see more of the game, and unfortunately, that's unclear at the time of this writing. Microsoft will have a summer event, perhaps coinciding with E3 2021, and it's possible that the Perfect Dark reboot will be shown there, but that has yet to be confirmed at the time of this writing.
Regardless, Cox's hiring should go a long way in helping to fill the void left by the departure of Design Director Drew Murray. Murray left The Initiative in February, just a couple of months after the Perfect Dark reboot game was revealed to the public. Murray then rejoined Insomniac Games, a studio he had previously worked at for about a decade, helping to develop some of the studio's most popular games.
The Initiative is one of the most-impressive studios in the industry, with Microsoft making a number of high profile hires to make new games at the studio. At one point, The Initiative was even referred to as an AAAA studio instead of the usual AAA designation, which means that the studio is expected to deliver cutting-edge, top-of-the-line gaming experiences. The Perfect Dark reboot will be The Initiative's first release, so it will definitely be interesting to see if it lives up to the hype. With proven developers like Rhonda Cox helping make the game, the odds are certainly in its favor.
Perfect Dark is in development for PC and Xbox Series X.