Shiny Entertainment founder David Perry has revealed that the late musician Michael Jackson was once working on his own dark fantasy video game that was supposed to feature entirely original music.
In a new blog post, David Perry revealed that Jackson contacted him to ask if he could try out the then-upcoming game "Enter the Matrix" early.
After that, Jackson invited Perry to work together to create a video game based on his ideas.
"We started holding meetings at Neverland Ranch and exploring what the game could be. Most importantly, we didn't want to make a project that would only serve to promote Michael Jackson," Perry wrote on the social network X.
"The concept we were developing was a serious, cinematic third-person action-adventure game. Michael would not be the main character. Instead, he would bring something much stronger: original music, imagination, access to the world of film and celebrities, as well as his own unique sense of wonder and fantasy," he added.
According to him, the game changed several names during development – among them were "The Final War", "Solo", "The Darkness", and finally "Dark Rim".
"The original version was a fantasy adventure game about kingdoms, war, magic, and a hero caught between different versions of the truth. Later, the concept evolved into something darker and more psychologically complex - a story about dreams, depression, consciousness, and the hidden world that exists beyond sleep," Perry said.
During development, the idea arose that Jackson would release his next album through a video game.
A deluxe edition of the album would later be released on CD and vinyl.
"At that time, video games were already a huge industry, but there were still a lot of people who didn't understand them," Perry explained.
"They thought games were for someone else - children or teenagers. But Michael's audience was global. It spanned different generations, countries and cultures. If the only way to hear his new album was to play a video game, a huge number of people would play a game for the first time," he pointed out, adding that the idea was extremely ambitious.
"Maybe too ambitious. But that was the point," Perry concluded.
The project was never completed because, as he says, "life took a different path."
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