Two decades later, Perfect Dark Zero remains an irresistible guilty pleasure

We all played video games as a kid that, in our heads, were the best thing in existence. Our young minds were detached from cynical criticism and broad consensus so we could sit back and enjoy something for what it was. For me, one of those games was Perfect Dark Zero, an Xbox 360 launch title that felt like an exciting glimpse into the distant future.

It was the first game I played on the seventh console generation, sitting on my sister's living room floor with a binder of pirated blank discs in my lap. Don't tell Phil Spencer. But while visiting family this long weekend, I jumped into countless different games that I had never seen or heard of before on a new console. Everything from Condemned: Criminal Origins to Gears of War to Oblivion – they've pirated every single launch game and then some.

But Rare's Perfect Dark Zero felt the most futuristic to me. Maybe it tried hard to have the stylish visuals or its cool attitude, but something about it has stuck with me over the years and never left. So, with its 20th anniversary in the rearview mirror, let's talk about it.

After all this time, Perfect Dark Zero is a deeply flawed gem

In 2025, cringe is the best word to describe Perfect Dark Zero. Its modern vision of Joanna Dark was a badass, smart-talking redhead sporting sapphire blue eyes and a skin-tight bodysuit. She clearly wanted to be a beautiful and powerful female character, but still hung onto the very dated tropes of sexualization that held her back from greatness. The end result was that Microsoft's Xbox 360 didn't have the mascot it needed at launch, and so was left behind without a second thought to average reviews.

Fun fact — Perfect Dark Zero takes place in 2020. We haven't invented flying cars or hung out with aliens, even five years after the fact.

A troubled development cycle meant that Rare was piecing together a launch title until the last minute, with an array of rushed and loosely put together experiences that didn't appear in the game or perform particularly well. But still, there's a strange retro charm to its overall vibe that makes it even more fun today than it was back in 2005, especially now that the reboot has been canceled.

Its weapons and gadgets are creative takes on established science-fiction ideas, villains chew scenery like there's no tomorrow, while the pause screen is also sponsored by Samsung and presented as a futuristic mobile phone interface. It's so lame, but god I love it.

None of that mattered to me as a teenager, as I blasted through corridors of generic gangsters in search of solving its overarching story mystery. Loading at the level of Hong Kong and looking at the stars, as I climbed to the roof, it felt like I had never been presented before, and it was enough to see its campaign to the end.

Keep in mind that this was before Call of Duty took over the world, and the best shooter consoles were capable of mustering was pretty much limited to Halo and Medal of Honor. Perfect Dark Zero was the second entry in an IP that Microsoft wanted to make a huge deal of, it just wasn't meant to be.

Microsoft's big shooter hit of this generation would be Gears of War, which over the course of several years probably even eclipsed Halo in popularity.

But even today, I can appreciate the ambition at the core of Perfect Dark Zero. You're not just shooting bad guys with predictable military weaponry, but using an assortment of sick gadgets, alien weapons, and fighting through locations that don't feel pulled from contemporary headlines. It was a more stylized take on the shooter genre, and if it was successful, maybe the seventh generation wouldn't be full of bland, gray copycats trying to outdo Call of Duty's launch.

Joanna climbs the stairs to Dark Perfect Dark Zero.

Jumping into Perfect Dark Zero now feels like discovering an unconventional time capsule. For the most part, it just doesn't feel good to play, and its aesthetic has a ridiculously distorted view of what it means to be fun. But I love these awkward parts and how they make me nostalgic for a time when video games were still able to tease me about what the future holds.

I love that this flawed chapter in Xbox history is still playable, calling back to a moment in history before the console giant found itself on top of the world. It's a shame Joanna Dark wasn't able to climb the summit with them.