A reboot and/or retcon of the original/vanilla Perfect Dark? 
2 Likes
Awesome to see āPerfect Darkā coming back, although again, like KI 2013, disappointing that Rare isnāt doing it. Hopefully it will be good, if not great.
1 Like
Especially after its rather long hiatus, yes 
Was thrilled to see this until I saw Ryan at Xbox mention that itās an FPS. I know, the original games were FPS, but I was under the mistaken assumption that The Initiative was put together from various studios that worked on high end third parson action adventure games. There were even rumors that The Initiative was working on Perfect Dark as a dark, third person neo-noir thriller.
So to see that they brought in this specific talent to combat Sonyās stranglehold on this genre only to do a game in a genre that Xbox already has Halo, Doom, Wolfenstein and Quake in isā¦ Kinda ridiculous?
I dunno, Iām sure shooter fans and more specifically Perfect Dark fans are psyched and good for everyone that is, for sure. For me, and this is probably overstating it, but this is just another nail on the coffin of my Xbox fandom. Iāve purchased every system as close to launch as humanyly possible, but Series X offers nothing now and almost nothing in the future that specifically interests me.
It also sucks (for me, at least) that MS has so many franchises that I do thoroughly enjoy that theyāve all but abandoned over the years. The Initiativeās big reveal was something I was really looking forward to, and now (again, for me) itās just another reason to lean Sonyās way, which I kinda hate doing.
Oh well. Iām just one person, itās not all about me, and Iām sure tons of Rare fans, PD fans and Xbox fans will be overjoyed for this when it comes out. Good for them, really.
Not really. I mean, thereās always room for variation and distinction in the genre, even innovation. āPerfect Darkā played with corporate espionage, so maybe some interesting stuff could be done with the concept of a secret agent that couldnāt be done back then.
1 Like
Okay, I shouldāve specifiedā¦ to ME, itās kinda ridiculous. Yes, there might be some interesting stuff that could be done with an FPS that hasnāt been done a million times already, but to me, this is the rough equivelant of saying "okay, we have some the best fighting game developers from Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Guilty Gearā¦ Letās have them make an awesome dating sim.
Iām not saying they canāt do it. Iām saying that taken at face value, one would ideally expect, if not hope that youād bring in experts in something specific to do something in the neighborhood of that thing theyāve excelled at in the past. To me, that seems relatively logical.
Itās not really the same thing, though. Itās sort of like different flavors of shooters. On one hand, you have very over the top shooters such as āDoom Eternalā that embraces the cheese and fast-paced, manic-levels adrenaline rush, but then on the other you have games like āBioShockā, āCall of Cthulhu: Dark Cornersā, āCondemned: Criminal Originsā, āReturn to Castle Wolfensteinā, āF.E.A.R.ā or āDoom 3ā which emphasize a more methodical and slower pace (at times) and storytelling. And of course there are some really excellent DOOM mods which transform the games altogether into something unique and different. The point is, the fact that the game is a shooter shouldnāt negate it from being a dark neo-noir thriller, itās whatās done with the material. Ideally, I would want it to be a good game first, regardless of whether or not itās first or third person.
1 Like
Well yeah, Iād want it to be a good game as well. And while I recognize that not all first person games are the same, a gameās theme doesnāt do nearly as much to separate it genre-wise if the primary focus of the action is on shooting. A first person shooter is a first person shooter regardless of where it takes place or what happens between action sequences.
I know that opinion sounds reductive and perhaps a bit dismissive, but while many genres that proceeded it or rose to popularity while shooters have been king have seen ebbs and flows, shooters are so prevelant year after year, regardless of how similar the action is or what unique weapons you get. So yeah, you can have a spy thriller, a space marine game, a game set in hell or world war 2 or under water, but if the youāre spending most of the time doing the same thing over and over and over and you donāt see your character, it starts to look like the same idea reskinned, with changes that donāt feel overly unique or compelling.
Again though, this is just my opinion. If it wasnāt blatalntly obvious already, here I am, fully and openly expressing the opinion that I personally find little value or enjoyment in the FPS genre in 2020. I loved it back in the 007, Quake 3 Arena and Halo days when the genre was still growing in terms of graphics, ideas and storytelling, but Iāve played enough of them over the years to the point where most of them blend together in to one homogenous blob of an experience with only minor differences here and there and a few decent narratives to follow.
So my hope for Perfect Dark was to see the character; to be able to do unique gun-kata type stuff that I could see, or at the very least some type of cool gymnastic / ninja type stuff with this awesome secret agent with high tech stuff. Now, any of that stuff that I get will be minimal, replaced with the idea of shooting, shooting and sniping and using some tech weapons and more shooting. Been there, done that.
Iām hoping they have some really fun, compelling stuff that separates this game. Cyberpunkās aesthetic got me to buy in (which Iām completely regretting, but thatās a different story), so maybe Iāll try and kick that football again with PD.
Yeah, there is the tendency of retreading the same path over and over again within the genre. There are notable divergences. For example, āMegaton Rainfallā, āEdith Finchā, etc.
Who is to say that the game wonāt feature those elements? Itās possible that it might. Hell, for all we know they might do something like āThe Sufferingā and give you the option to do both third person and first person.
Indeed.
Ah, āCyberpunkā. A shame that itās so glitchy and that itās suffering from its various problems. That said, I might give it a try as soon as the problems are fixed - it looks like a game up my alley.
Well they thought Duke Nukem Forever was gonna be great. Sadly it was not. But since governors have us all locked up like days, anything to distract from the hell weāre in now.
1 Like
Well, in the case of DNF, itās a little bit more complicated. It had potential to be great, but yeah, itās pretty bad. Hopefully thatās not the case with this new āPerfect Darkā.
2 Likes
Agreed
1 Like
Thereās nothing actually about Perfect Dark in here. Itās just people talking up UE5
There is mention of āPerfect Darkā around 1:50 onwards.
Yeah but it doesnāt actually tell us anything new about the game. We already knew it was running on UE5. Likeā¦ this is nothing.