If you haven’t already heard, Microsoft has announced thousands of company-wide layoffs, around 9000 employees, including in their Xbox division. This has resulted in the unfortunate cancellation of Rare’s Everwild and The Initiative’s reboot of Perfect Dark, plus other unannounced projects.

Perfect Dark was originally created by Rare, and was released on the Nintendo 64 in 2000. Microsoft bought Rare in 2002 when they were one of the biggest video game developers on the planet, and since then, have squandered their potential and their IP. We still haven’t gotten a proper Banjo-Kazooie or Conker’s Bad Fur Day sequel, and the Perfect Dark IP has been left in a state of limbo and uncertainty for almost two decades now. Not much was known about Everwild, but the trailer we got last year for the Perfect Dark reboot looked promising. Now we’ll never know.

When it comes to video games and the video game industry, Microsoft only excels at two things: 1) Online gaming and…2) Buying developers and their IP without any clue what to do with them. They closed Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin in 2024, two quality studios with impressive game resumes, and now The Initiative, plus a bunch of layoffs at Rare. These likely won’t be the last.

Now it’s anyone’s guess when we’ll ever see the Perfect Dark series again. Xbox seems lost and at sea. They have more game studios and IP at their disposal than they’ve ever had, and they seem utterly clueless what to do with any of it. It’s unlikely to happen, but if Nintendo decided to make an offer to Microsoft for all of Rare’s IP (Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Conker, Battletoads, Killer Instinct, Jet Force Gemini, and many others) and bring them home where most of them began on Nintendo platforms, many Nintendo fans would be overjoyed. In a just world, it would happen because they have no future at Xbox.

Condolences to all who lost their jobs because of this. Hopefully they can find new homes quickly within the industry and continue to make amazing games.