One of 2025's grimmer themes seems to be a perennial one for the games industry: mass layoffs. One of the very worst examples came in July, when Microsoft laid off around 9,000 people in total, alongside shuttering several studios and in-development projects, perhaps most notably the Perfect Dark reboot being co-developed by The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics.
Behind the scenes, developers at The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics were desperately trying to save the project, but these efforts would come to naught: a last-ditch attempt involving publisher Take-Two collapsed when no agreement could be reached over the IP rights. There was also debate over how much of the ace-looking reveal had been smoke-and-mirrors, with one dev angrily refuting the idea there wasn't a game there.
