According to a new rumour, Microsoft’s upcoming Perfect Dark reboot will be getting help from developer Certain Affinity – a studio with ex-Bungie staff which has worked on multiple Call of Duty and Halo games, including Halo Infinite, and even the recent Doom reboot.
Since it was officially revealed at The Game Awards in December 2020, not much has been heard about the third game in the Perfect Dark series. It’s primarily being developed by new studio The Initiative, which includes ex-Tomb Raider developers from Crystal Dynamics – and just a few months ago it was announced that Crystal Dynamics itself would be assisting with Perfect Dark.
Now, according to journalist Jez Corden on the Xbox Two podcast, it seems that another studio could be supporting The Initiative on Perfect Dark: Certain Affinity, a support studio that has worked on multiple FPSs over the years. It’s helped develop multiple Call of Duty and Halo games all the way back to Halo 2 and Call of Duty: World of War, and even helped out with Doom 2016’s multiplayer.
“They’re working on Perfect Dark,” states Jez Corden on the podcast (below), specifically noting that the team is “working on assets and levels” for the game. “They’re working on weapons [too],” Corden adds, saying that he’s “heard about a crossbow” in particular. As for multiplayer, which Certain Affinity seems to specialise in, Corden would only say “possibly” – but doesn’t know for sure.
Corden and other leakers this week, such as Jeff Grubb, have also said that Certain Affinity is working on a full original game for Microsoft codenamed “Buena Suerte” (good luck) that may be Monster Hunter-like. Corden also says that the studio is still working on Halo Infinite, on a new multiplayer mode that could possibly be a battle royale mode – although he doubts it.
As for Perfect Dark, the last update we had in September 2021 suggested that it was “still early in development” – so it’s perhaps not a surprise if Microsoft is bringing in multiple support studios to help speed up the process.