She's the new Lara Croft, but she still lives in fear. Trauma after Perfect Dark changed the actress' approach to the industry
The actress playing Lara Croft still hasn't recovered from the cancellation of Perfect Dark, and Alix Wilton Regan still has concerns about whether she will lose another role without any warning.
Even the lead actress in the new Perfect Dark was surprised by the cancellation of this promising title.
After Microsoft announced massive layoffs, the cast of The Initiative's project hinted at their feelings about the sudden cancellation of the reboot of the iconic FPS. As confirmed by Alix Wilton Regan, even the main actors set to appear in the new PD were completely taken aback by the decision from the Redmond giant.
The End of Perfect Dark surprised everyone
In an interview with The Gamer, the actress who was supposed to voice Joanna Dark and will now play Lara Croft, confirmed that she learned about the cancellation of Perfect Dark at the same time as the players – that is, after Microsoft's official announcement of job cuts. Regan mentioned that the project was supposed to hit a few key milestones to keep the "client" (the publisher) happy, and she recorded dialogue for "entire chapters of this universe."
Although Regan didn't know the exact state of the game's development, from her perspective, it seemed that production was proceeding smoothly. Therefore, the news of the team's disbandment was a very unpleasant surprise for the actress.
I was as shocked, surprised, and devastated as everyone else was when the funding was pulled, and the studio was closed. I did not see it coming. I was absolutely blindsided when the project was defunded.
Of course, it was a big blow for her and Elias Toufexis, who also expressed his frustration shortly after Microsoft abandoned Perfect Dark. And as Regan emphasized once again, it was the game's development team that suffered the most.
It was devastating. So many people lost their jobs. An entire workforce was disbanded. There was an ecosystem of creativity and collaboration that was in place that we lost overnight. It was really difficult, really difficult for everybody.
Lara Croft to the rescue, but fear is still there
Unfortunately for The Initiative, attempts to save the game came to nothing. Regan talked about how the team was working hard until the very end, hoping they could still save the project. She also mentioned the support they got from players and other developers.
I couldn't say too much about it because I knew The Initiative was in talks to keep Perfect Dark up and running in some shape or form. Possibly a slimmed-down version, possibly something slightly different. But certainly, everyone was working really hard behind the scenes to bring Perfect Dark back. And then one day, I heard from the creative director that the deal hadn't gone through, and that really everything had fallen apart, and production was fully stopping.
Unfortunately, in the end, only a handful of creators were hired by Take-Two Interactive, without the rights to Perfect Dark. For Regan and Toufexis, it was a painful lesson that strained their trust in the industry: proof that everything can fall apart without warning, even when everything seems to be going well.
Fortunately for her, when Perfect Dark was finally laid to rest, she had already been working for a year on her own interpretation of the Tomb Raider series' protagonist. We will see this with the release of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis next year. However, Regan admitted that even now she still has an irrational fear that she might lose this role as well.
The full interview with Regan by The Gamer is set to be published in the coming days.
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Author: Jacob Blazewicz
Graduated with a master's degree in Polish Studies from the University of Warsaw with a thesis dedicated to this very subject. Started his adventure with gamepressure.com in 2015, writing in the Newsroom and later also in the film and technology sections (also contributed to the Encyclopedia). Interested in video games (and not only video games) for years. He began with platform games and, to this day, remains a big fan of them (including Metroidvania). Also shows interest in card games (including paper), fighting games, soulslikes, and basically everything about games as such. Marvels at pixelated characters from games dating back to the time of the Game Boy (if not older).
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