Original title: Microsoft gave Perfect Dark’s developers a chance to save the game — after it was already canceled
is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. In July, Microsoft’s sweeping layoffs hit Xbox hard, and shuttered the entire game studio that was building Perfect Dark. Officially, the game was canceled. But unofficially, reports Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Microsoft gave Perfect Dark’s other set of developers — Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics — a chance to revive the game. Here’s where it gets potentially confusing: Microsoft doesn’t own Crystal Dynamics — that studio belongs to the Embracer Group, which has had many troubles of its own. So Embracer was trying to cut a deal with yet another publisher, the giant Take-Two, to buy, fund, and publish the game. But, Schreier reports: the talks collapsed at least in part because the companies involved were unable to come to terms over long-te