Tbf...There is also World's Edge which is running smoothly but The Initiative's issue seems as if they don't really know what they want to be or it was marketed as something it wasn't, they never established a firm culture which is key for a studio, on top of this, creating an AAA studio from scratch is hard even at the best of times, it is way harder in the current climate of WFH/COVID and a lack of talent, it's becoming a real problem in the video games industry right now, not just for Microsoft, there's a lot of talent wanted but not enough to go around, in an industry which is more competitive than ever, I think the industry as a whole needs to figure out a way to fix this before it becomes a massive issue.

But I think this puts a pin in the debate over creating studios vs buying studios, I doubt we'll see Microsoft creating anymore new studios, instead they'll continue to focus on acquiring studios which already have an established culture that works for them, with the talent alongside it, of course in the case of Activision-Blizzard though they need to go in and be very hands on to fix their dozens of issues.

Definitely not liking that a lot of this seems to be Darrel's fault, I think The Initiative advertised themselves as something they weren't which frustrated a lot of very talented big name developers, I'm willing to give him a chance to fix things due to his career, pivoting to co-development with Crystal Dynamics is a smart way to rapidly fix the situation and Crystal Dynamics will likely work well with him as he ran them for 13 years with not much issue, they know his development style and he knows them well but if he somehow manages to annoy Crystal Dynamics then he needs to be given the boot.

Though I will say, I think it puts Microsoft in an awkward position if The Initiative doesn't just become a typical 300 person AAA studio rather than this tiny "senior employees only" studio, Square may not want Crystal Dynamics on Perfect Dark 2 and that would screw The Initiative, I think Microsoft needs to make Square an offer that they can't refuse...

I feel like the Thanos meme of "You could not live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me" would be very appropriate here with Gallagher being the Avengers and Thanos being Crystal Dynamics xD

Unfortunately, I don't know how to make a meme :(