The news was initially confirmed in a statement signed by Brenda Romero and posted on X. “Last night, we learned that our publisher has canceled funding for our game along with several other unannounced projects at other studios,

Microsoft is canceling its Perfect Dark and Everwild games as part of sweeping cuts to its Xbox division. Matt Booty, Xbox president of game content and studios, revealed that Microsoft will be closing The Initiative, the studio behind Perfect Dark, in an internal memo to Xbox employees today.

An Xbox spokesperson declined to confirm how many people were impacted, but the cuts were widespread and significant. Subsidiaries across the gaming organization were told that they would be affected by the layoffs.

And all of this is after more layoffs and shutdown 18 months ago which closed Arkan Austin, Alpha Dog Games and the developer of Xbox’s best game in a while, Hi-Fi Rush’s Tango Gameworks, which had to be saved by another company.

In today's gaming world, a decade of development can sometimes amount to nothing. Parent company Microsoft has reportedly cancelled Rare's long-in-development project Everwild. The news comes amid broader layoffs across Microsoft's Xbox division.

We have made the decision to stop development of Perfect Dark and Everwild as well as wind down several unannounced projects across our portfolio. As part of this, we are closing one of our studios, The Initiative.