Original GoldenEye and Perfect Dark composer “would’ve loved” to work on the reboot, but the studio “chose someone else”

The Perfect Dark reboot seems to finally be happily underway. Its trailer, revealed at Xbox Games Showcase 2024, shows the first-person shooter series' agent Joanna Dark stomping and stealthing through a sunny Garden City. It would fit perfectly into Cyberpunk 2077. So the trailer indicates a new genre direction for Perfect Dark, as well as completely redone visuals (as is to be expected for a 25-year-old game), and, apparently, brand new music. 

Perfect Dark's original composer, Grant Kirkhope, writes on Twitter that he "would've loved to have scored the new Perfect Dark," but "alas, it wasn't to be." The former Rare composer previously worked on the British developer's 1997 FPS GoldenEye 007, one of the world's first-party games.

In fact, Kirkhope is responsible for several of video game history's memorable soundtracks, including the springy tunes in 1998's Banjo-Kazooie and 1999's Donkey Kong 64, home of the supernaturally groovy DK rap.

But the Perfect Dark reboot's developers, The Initiative and Tomb Raider's Crystal Dynamics, decided to pick a different composer for what they call their novel blend of "first-person shooters, immersive sims, and stealth-action." 

"I doubt there'll be any references [to my original soundtrack]," Kirkhope says on X. "I demoed for it, but they chose someone else." The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics have neither publicly revealed the reboot's composer, nor its release date. The Initiative first announced the game in 2020, but they've been reportedly mired in delays in the years since. 

Want to learn more about Perfect Dark? Here's everything we know about the Xbox Series X exclusive so far.