Microsoft announced the closure of its game studio The Initiative, founded in 2018 in Santa Monica, California. The studio, positioned as a “AAAA-tier” developer, was working on a reboot of the Perfect Dark franchise in collaboration with Crystal Dynamics. While they were at it, Microsoft also canceled Perfect Dark.
The closure of The Initiative became part of another wave of layoffs at Xbox, previously reported by Bloomberg. This is already the fourth major wave of layoffs at Microsoft Gaming over the past two years, including cuts at Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax Media, and other studios.
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Image author: The Initiative. Image source: Perfect Dark