Perfect Dark Joanna Dark actor calls for a Hi-Fi Rush-style revival after Microsoft cancels the reboot, as Starfield and Deus Ex star reveals his scrapped role will cost him "thousands of dollars"

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"Every game I do as director or actor I wake up hoping it isn't canceled"

Perfect Dark
(Image credit: The Initiative)

As Joanna Dark's new actress calls for someone to save Perfect Dark, the voice actor for Deus Ex's Adam Jensen has revealed that he was meant to have a role in the now-canceled reboot, and will lose out on "thousands of dollars" due to it being scrapped.

As a part of Microsoft's fourth batch of layoffs since the Microsoft Activision deal went through, developer The Initiative has been closed and its Perfect Dark reboot has been canceled, alongside Rare's Everwild and apparently a new MMO from Zenimax Online Studios, too. We only had one real look at Perfect Dark with a snazzy demo at last year's Xbox Showcase (for which a developer has since come out and dispelled rumors that it was faked gameplay), and during that it was revealed that Cyberpunk 2077 and Dragon Age voice actor Alix Wilton Regan would be playing protagonist Joanna Dark.

Wilton Regan tweeted a message following the game's cancellation, saying: "Agent Dark doesn’t give up and neither should any of you. It's been an honor to work with the talents at The Initiative. My heart hurts for everyone affected by today. But like Joanna, we will all rise again."

Meanwhile, Elias Toufexis, who voiced Adam Jensen in Deus Ex: Human Revolution and its sequel Mankind Divided, as well as Sam Coe in Starfield, has revealed that he was going to have a role in the game (via Eurogamer). "These games getting canceled is a constant threat." Toufexis says, adding, "I had a good amount of days of acting in Perfect Dark that just got scrapped. Thousands of dollars that I expected and counted on gone in a snap."

He later reiterates that he didn't "lose money owed or anything," but "had days held for my work on the game that would have been thousands dollars of work upcoming."

The recent struggles facing the games industry (especially under Xbox) have the actor worried, saying, "every game I do as director or actor I wake up hoping it isn't canceled."

While it's unclear if Perfect Dark can be picked up, Palworld fans are urging Pocketpair to pick up a Romero Games project that was defunded by its publisher.

Scott McCrae
Scott McCrae
Contributor

Scott has been freelancing for over three years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on GamesRadar+ in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.

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