Excellent Darkish was one of many largest initiatives gutted by Microsoft’s newest spherical of layoffs, which is de facto saying one thing given one of many different canceled video games is an MMO. The rebooted shooter was in under-wraps growth for a number of years earlier than a fantastic-looking gameplay reveal debuted simply final yr—and now that every one that work is circling the drain, the voice behind Joanna Darkish herself is determined to put it aside.
Alix Wilton Regan, who you may additionally know as the feminine participant character in Dragon Age: Inquisition, took to X with a publish mourning the sport’s cancellation.
Joanna is resilient. Decided. Artistic. Caring. Robust. Agent Darkish doesn’t surrender & neither ought to any of you. It’s been an honour to work with the skills at The Initiative. My coronary heart hurts for everybody affected by at the moment. However like Joanna, we are going to all rise once more.❤️AWR / JD pic.twitter.com/au29E04APGJuly 2, 2025
She adopted that up a day later with one other publish making a extra direct name for motion: “I HOPE WE LIVE IN A NICE WORLD,” telling followers to “communicate up in the event you wanna see Excellent Darkish survive” and utilizing the hashtag #PerfectPickUp.
Ignoring the truth that probably the most latest posts utilizing that hashtag is a 2016 picture of a 1954 Chevrolet 3100 pickup truck, it is an admirable try and rally help for the long-dormant collection.
Lots of people have been reaching out and floating this concept on my timeline, my cellphone and in my DMs, so I’m simply gonna say it: I HOPE WE LIVE IN A NICE WORLD 🤞🤞🤞 #PerfectDark #PerfectPickUp communicate up in the event you wanna see Excellent Darkish survive 🤞🤞🤞 https://t.co/P9cdDQITNDJuly 4, 2025
Regan is not the one actor disenchanted the sport was canned. Elias Toufexis, the gravelly voice of Adam Jensen, did not ask for this both; in a publish on X, he stated he’d blocked out a number of days for his function within the recreation. Now that it is not popping out, he isn’t getting “hundreds of {dollars} that I anticipated and counted on.”
Toufexis, who will voice the lead function within the upcoming action-adventure Hell is Us, continued within the thread: “Now each recreation I do as director or actor I get up hoping it isn’t canceled … I’m a contract contract employee and I’ve different video games and exhibits. The devs and designers and writers are workers and at the moment are unemployed. That is occurring means too typically.”
These video games getting canceled is a continuing menace. I had a very good quantity of days of performing in Excellent Darkish that simply bought scrapped. Hundreds of {dollars} that I anticipated and counted on gone in a snap. ..now each recreation I do as director or actor I get up hoping it isn’t canceled. pic.twitter.com/neZiX1xDLHJuly 3, 2025
Toufexis clarified in a follow-up publish that he did not “lose cash owed” due to the cancellation, however had “days held for my work on the sport that will have been hundreds [of] {dollars}” that he now will not be paid for.
Microsoft is not more likely to simply hand the scrapped venture to whoever’s asking, however I do hope the workforce and their work will get some type of justice. The Initiative’s closure is one other in an extended string of bloodbaths inside Xbox’s enormous array of studios—that it occurred earlier than it even launched its first recreation is an additional slap within the face to everybody who put over a half-decade of onerous work in.
