Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark is a 2000 first-person shooter game developed and published by Rare for the Nintendo 64. The first game of the Perfect Dark series, it follows Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute research centre, as she attempts to stop an extraterrestrial conspiracy by rival corporation dataDyne. The game features a campaign mode where the player must complete a series of levels to progress through the story, as well as a range of multiplayer options, including a co-operative mode and traditional deathmatch settings with computer-controlled bots.
Summary from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA, read 5 September 2026.
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- Released
- 2000
- Developer
- Rare Ltd.
- Platforms
- 1 systems
- Critics
- Not scored
- Steam Deck
- Unknown
- Download
- Not stated
The record
| First released | 22 May 2000 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Rare Ltd. |
| Publisher | Rare Ltd. |
| Platforms | Nintendo 64 |
| Genres | First-Person Shooter |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata Q1408723, seeded 30 August 2026.
How long is Perfect Dark? How long to beat it
Total play time for Perfect Dark is about 30.5 hours to do everything, and around 8 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 8h | 142 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 16.2h | 43 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 30.5h | 14 |
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
Where Perfect Dark sits on the grid
The grid places every game in the catalogue on measured axes rather than on an opinion. This is where Perfect Dark lands on each map it has the data for, with the share of the catalogue it beats on each axis.
- Year
- 59ahead of 13% of the catalogue
- Reach
- 30ahead of 72% of the catalogue
Percentiles are against the games that carry a reading on that axis, not the whole catalogue: counting a game with no figure as a zero would flatter everything that has one. How the grid works.
What readers say about Perfect Dark
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
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Where Perfect Dark appears
The ranked lists and finder pages Perfect Dark qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
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Common questions about Perfect Dark
What platforms is Perfect Dark on?
Perfect Dark is available on Nintendo 64. It first released in 2000.
Who made Perfect Dark?
Perfect Dark was developed by Rare Ltd. and published by Rare Ltd..
How long does it take to beat Perfect Dark?
about 8 hours for the main story, 16.2 hours with the main extras, 30.5 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.