Pixel Sundays: The History and Future of Perfect Dark

30 June 2024 at 10:00 in Gaming News with no comments
Perfect Dark

Summary


Perfect Dark Games

The Perfect Dark games originated in 2000, the year the game was released for Nintendo 64. Developed by Rare, this game is a quasi-sequel to GoldenEye 007. Here, you play the secret agent Joanna Dark. Although based on the same engine, it introduces several innovations and improvements, more on that later. In 2005, there was a port to Xbox 360 and in 2015, it also came to Xbox One as part of the Rare Replay collection.

Later in the same year, the game was also released for the Gameboy Color. However, this version was quite different from the N64 version and did not compare well, resulting in much lower reviews. Nevertheless, this version also featured some exciting elements.

In 2005, a prequel to Perfect Dark, Perfect Dark Zero, was released exclusively for Xbox 360 and never received a port to any other console.

Perfect Dark Reboot

In December 2020, Microsoft announced a reboot of the game. It is being developed by the Microsoft studio The Initiative, all the details known so far will be revealed later.

What is Perfect Dark?

Perfect Dark is a first-person shooter by Rare. This game was so “brutal” for its time that it received an M rating, targeting older audiences. In Germany, the game never launched as Nintendo had already faced difficulties in selling higher-rated games there.

You play as the secret agent Joanna Dark in a dystopian future where an ecological disaster called “The Cascade” has ravaged the Earth. The mega-corporation Core Mantis has developed a system called The GEN Network that makes regions like Cairo, Egypt, habitable again. But behind this seemingly benevolent facade, there are many secrets that you must uncover.

To do this, you use many of your skills in the game. In some parts, you need to be quiet, in others, you defeat enemies in hand-to-hand or ranged combat. You have to act strategically in many moments to defeat your opponents and handle moral dilemmas.

Story of Perfect Dark

There are many spoilers ahead for Perfect Dark and its sequel, Perfect Dark Zero. If you don’t want to be spoiled, you can simply click here to skip all spoilers.

Perfect Dark 2000

Perfect Dark is set in an alternative year 2023. A war rages on Earth between the Maians and the reptilian Skedar, two alien races. The Skedar have the ability to disguise themselves as humans thanks to a cloaking device. On Earth, the Carrington Institute, which is allied with the Maians, and the company dataDyne led by Cassandra de Vries are rivals.

You play as Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute. Due to her perfect training awards, she has earned the codename Perfect Dark. In her first mission, Joanna must free a defector named Dr. Caroll from a dataDyne lab. It turns out that Dr. Caroll is an AI, unconvinced by its planned mission.

Later, Carrington himself is captured by dataDyne soldiers at his villa, but Joanna rescues him. There, she learns that Dr. Caroll was taken to Chicago. There, Dark uncovers a conspiracy where Cassandra and the NSA Director plan to kidnap the President to gain access to a research ship. Despite this looming threat, Dark is asked to find a crashed Maian ship near Area 51 and save the Maian protector Elvis.

Since the President refuses to hand over the ship to dataDyne, the NSA sends a team to kill him and replace him with a clone. Luckily, Joanna manages to thwart this plan and even destroy the clone.

Perfect Dark 2000

With no other way left, dataDyne now hijacks the research ship to reach an ancient spaceship. This contains a planet destroyer, which the Skedar plan to use to wipe out both Earth and the Maians. Joanna and Elvis follow them onto the spaceship and find a reprogrammed Dr. Caroll, tasked with decrypting the weapons. But Dark manages to restore his original personality and triggers the self-destruction of this weapon.

As Joanna and Carrington wait to be received by the President, the Skedar attack the Carrington Institute and capture Joanna. On an alien spaceship, Dark encounters Cassandra, who sacrifices herself to save Dark. Elvis and Joanna then manage to take over the spaceship and land on the Skedar homeworld. There, they defeat the leader and leave the Skedar in disarray. The game ends with the two managing to leave the planet before the Maian fleet launches an orbital attack.

Story of Perfect Dark Zero

Perfect Dark Zero is a prequel to Perfect Dark. In this game, Joanna Dark works with her father Jack and hacker Chandra Sekhar as bounty hunters. They are hired by an organization called “The Institute” to rescue the scientist Nathan Zeigler. He possesses valuable information about a revolutionary technology and has been captured by the Triad boss Killian. After the two rescue Nathan, he implants his memory into Jack’s memory before he dies.

Jack is then kidnapped by dataDyne, and when Joanna tries to rescue him, he is unfortunately killed. However, Dark finds out that dataDyne is searching for an alien artifact that grants immense power. Chandra betrays Joanna and joins dataDyne. Dark is then rescued by an agent of the Carrington Institute and joins them to stop dataDyne.

Perfect Dark Zero

In the final conflict, Dark can defeat both the head of dataDyne and his daughter, who had killed Jack, even though they use the power of the artifact. Through this act, she becomes a top agent at the Carrington Institute.

Game Developments

The first game in the series was developed by Rare, based on the GoldenEye engine. But Perfect Dark had some improvements such as a second fire mode for each weapon, the ability to jump down ledges, and the ability to disarm opponents. Since all this required more memory, the N64 Expansion Pak was necessary. Otherwise, it was not possible to play the Story Mode. The heads of the opponents were randomly chosen in each level, and their size was also randomly generated each time.

The reboot will differ greatly from the old games and shine with many new features. Not much is known about the reboot yet, except that it aims to fundamentally improve the game.

Perfect Dark Reboot

A reboot for Perfect Dark was announced back in 2020, but now there is finally a proper trailer. This trailer was shown on June 9, 2024, as part of the Xbox Game Showcase. It is not yet clear exactly when this game will be released, but we know that it will be available for Xbox and PC. The reboot is being developed by The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics.

Perfect Dark Zero

The first thing noticeable in the trailer is the graphics of the reboot. According to statements in the trailer, all is in-game footage and it looks stunning. You can see Joanna Dark again, who starts by jumping from an airplane with a wingsuit and lands in futuristic Cairo. Using her secret agent equipment, she can scan the environment and intercept conversations and data.

The reboot is set in the world of the original games, but tells a completely new story. Thus, you don’t need any prior knowledge of the old games or anything similar. But the world is the same, plagued by a variety of extreme environmental influences and GEN Network offers a solution, so everything is very similar to the first part of the game.

Perfect Dark Zero

You will play some fixed missions in the game, but you can decide how you want to solve them, whether you try it in a quiet way or go straight for the shooting. Unfortunately, there is not much information on the reboot yet, but as soon as there is new info, we will inform you at AllKeyShop.

Save on buying Perfect Dark

Although it may still take some time until the Perfect Dark remake is released, you can now play the old games on Xbox. If you want to buy the games cheaply for your Xbox or get the remake at the best price, you should check out AllKeyShop. Because AllKeyShop compares prices for you at more than 60 retailers and can always show you the best price for video games.

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By Kilian Kilian

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