A new James Bond game was announced all the way back in 2020. IO Interactive, the developers behind the smash hit Hitman games, were chosen as the developers. Some speculated it would be an open-world 007 adventure taking its cues from the Hitman series. A slick teaser trailer was released to announce the project.
Since then, it has been a little quiet as the developers worked on the game in conjunction with EON productions and MGM. This is the first James Bond video game since 007 Legends from Activision in 2012.
What was known shortly after the announcement is that the working title was “Project 007” and that the game would tell a wholly original Bond story, allowing players to:
“…step into the shoes of the world’s favorite Secret Agent to earn their 00 status…”
Anyone who knows their Bond-lore understands that 00-status, and the license to kill, is earned by scoring two kills in the line of duty while not a 00-agent. In the Fleming novels, these were revealed as a Japanese cipher expert in New York, and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm. The assassination of the Norwegian was told in detail in the opening scenes of Anthony Horowitz’s Bond continuation novel Forever And A Day. The book is set in the 1950s.
In the 2006 movie adaption of Casino Royale, the origin is updated to show Bond earning 00-status during the investigation of MI6 Prague Station Chief Dryden, suspected of selling secrets to an unnamed buyer. After tracking Dryden’s contact, Fisher, to a cricket match in Lahore, Pakistan, Bond kills him. He then earns the second kill with Dryden himself, shooting him in his embassy office.
Now, IO co-owners Christian Elverdam and Hakan Abrak have given an extensive interview with Eurogamer and revealed more. Elverdam confirms this take on Bond will be very much its own thing. So not simply an adaption of Sean Connery or Daniel Craig for video games. It will not just adapt movie continuity for the game market:
“For us it’s been about finding a mutual understanding of ‘what is James Bond about?’ and as we’ve talked about we’re doing an origin [story], because one thing, to show the trust they’ve instilled in us, is that we’re allowed to build a James Bond for the games [audience].
I think [it] is a profound homage to where our industry is and where the medium is, in the sense that yes, it’s time to have a James Bond character who was not a movie character but who’s comfortably just his own game character.”
Speaking about why IO was chosen for the James Bond license by EON and MGM, they spoke about the Hitman experience and the world-building and online community around the games as a major draw:
“I think some of these things are something that appealed to them, both at MGM and Eon. It’s not just capitalising on IP and doing one game and trying to earn something – it’s not like that.
When we commit to something we commit with everything: with the community and how we grow this love for the game we’re doing, and for the IP that we also promised we will treat like our own. And we’ll create a community that the gamers can call their own.”
Video games are fickle beasts to create. Whereas a movie tends to lock a release date and usually hits it, video games can be a case of “It’s ready when it’s ready!” Modern PC or console games routinely take 5 years to develop.
With this in mind, it seems unlikely this new Bond game will arrive much before 2025.
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