Perfect Dark Reboot Gameplay Was ’Basically Fake’

A level designer for the Perfect Dark reboot has responded to claims that the gameplay reveal from the 2024 Xbox showcase was "basically fake." Perfect Dark developer The Initiative was shut down as part of ongoing mass layoffs in Microsoft's gaming division that began on July 2, 2025, and the game is now officially canceled. The Initiative was founded in 2018, and Perfect Dark was set to be the fledgling studio's debut project.

The long-awaited reboot of the revered Nintendo 64 first-person spy shooter was first announced at The Game Awards 2020. Four years later, a three-minute vertical slice of in-engine Perfect Dark reboot gameplay was shown off at the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase. This Perfect Dark reveal trailer showed off the game's impressive visuals, varied stealth gameplay mechanics, and gave a brief sneak peek at the new Perfect Dark story.

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In a post Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach shared on Bluesky, a source that spoke to him after the Xbox Showcase in 2024 said the Perfect Dark gameplay trailer was "basically fake." When asked to define what he meant by "fake," Gach said that the gameplay slice shown off in the Perfect Dark trailer was "not indicative of the level of progress perceived to have been made on the game." Former Perfect Dark level designer Adam McDonald responded to the controversy surrounding the gameplay trailer and explained which aspects of the Perfect Dark trailer were real and which were fake.

Perfect Dark Reboot Trailer Was In-Engine, But Had "Some Fake Stuff In It"

The Perfect Dark sizzle reel at last year's Xbox showcase looked awesome. Someone at the time also told me it was basically fake. This was a joint project with Crystal Dynamics, a studio that's also struggling with Tomb Raider.— AmericanTruckSongs10 (@ethangach.bsky.social) 2025-07-02T17:21:09.279Z

According to McDonald in a series of posts on Bluesky, Perfect Dark had a real demo, but "worked best if you played it the way the person playing in the video plays it." "The real gameplay systems shown off worked juuust enough to look good in this video," McDonald said, "The parkour is all real, the hacking/deception is mostly real... the combat is 'real'... but it's set up to be played exactly that way..." He goes on to explain that the team made decisions to avoid intentionally lying to players about the game's state. ​​​

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McDonald was responding to controversy surrounding the game's now-only gameplay trailer after the claim that it was totally faked started to spread. Though the trailer was not entirely faked, McDonald does admit that there was "some fake stuff in it" and detailed the specifics. By his account, most of the supposedly in-game footage was, in fact, in-game, including its stealth gameplay, hacking systems, parkour, and gunplay – though it was in a very controlled environment.

McDonald explained that the Perfect Dark reboot gameplay trailer was "a pretty typical vertical slice." A vertical slice is essentially a compilation of footage (or a demo) for a game that shows off its best elements, but within a strict set of bounds. Now that The Initiative has been shuttered, this brief, tailored vertical slice of Perfect Dark reboot gameplay is all fans have when it comes to footage of the long-awaited, and now-canceled, Perfect Dark reboot.