In September, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier revealed that Take-Two tried to save the Perfect Dark reboot that was in development at The Initiative (with the help of Crystal Dynamics), but an agreement could not be reached with IP holder Microsoft about the future of the franchise.
Now, Schreier has followed up, adding that Take-Two has nonetheless hired two key developers from the Perfect Dark team to found a new 2K studio. They are Darrell Gallagher, the Studio Head at the Initiative (and formerly Studio Head at Crystal Dynamics), and Brian Horton. The latter worked at Crystal Dynamics with Gallagher on 2013's Tomb Raider and 2015's Rise of the Tomb Raider before moving to Insomniac, where he contributed to many games, including Marvel's Spider-Man, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and the upcoming Marvel's Wolverine. He had joined The Initiative in late 2024 as the new Creative Director, but the project, as we all know, was officially canceled in July 2025 by Microsoft, which also shut down the studio.
It's not the first time Take-Two scoops up an industry veteran to found a new studio within 2K. It already happened a few years ago with Michael Condrey, the former studio head of Sledgehammer Games and, before that, co-creator of Dead Space (alongside Glen Schofield) at Visceral Games. That team, based in Silicon Valley, is known as 31st Union, though Condrey himself was fired earlier this year following the tepid response to the studio's free-to-play roguelike hero third-person shooter game Project ETHOS, which is, however, reportedly still in development.
Given the average time of triple-A game development in 2025, we may not hear about this new Take-Two studio for another three or four years. Still, we'll keep you updated on any further rumors and leaks.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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