With the explosive conclusion to the final Daniel Craig Bond film in No Time to Die and distant rumblings of IO's Project 007, the future of Ian Fleming's iconic secret agent is uncertain and full of exciting possibilities. Both the silver screen and the gaming monitor are ripe for James Bond's suave flair for danger and intrigue, but this new beginning spearheaded by Project 007 could benefit greatly from breaking away from tradition.
For the longest time, James Bond's presence in video games has been firmly entrenched within the action-shooter genre. The most famous is Rare's 1997 Goldeneye 007, a landmark title for console first-person shooters which set the stage for a stream of famous Bond Shooters in both first and third person.
Bond's Fall From Grace
Following the lukewarm response to the lackluster Goldeneye: Rogue Agent in 2004, the once-golden property began to lose its shine, and even the casting of Sean Connery as Bond's VA in 2005's James Bond 007: From Russia with Love could not stop the fall from yearly releases to ever-widening gaps between new Bond titles. Even as the number of spies in video games continued to rise, the most famous spy of all faded from the public eye, slipping into the shadows with only occasional reappearances.
James Bond had arguably been the FPS king of the Nintendo 64, yet the character seemed incapable of finding success on new consoles.
Even as Daniel Craig took on the role of James Bond and director Martin Campbell breathed new life into the espionage icon with Casino Royale in 2006, the market for James Bond video games remained largely barren. As of today, no new titles have been released since 007 Legends in 2012.
Bond's True Home is in Espionage, Not Gunplay
In 2014, Telltale Co-Founder Kevin Bruner expressed his longing for a James Bond adventure game and expressed frustration with the treatment Britain's Ace of the Secret Service had received. Even following the shutdown of Telltale in 2018, the success of titles like Until Dawn and Detroit: Become Human demonstrate the viability of big-budget adventure games, and Bond is certainly deserving of similar treatment.
Bond could flourish in this new era of reactive storylines and multiple ways to approach challenges. The choice of IO, with its history of giving players diverse methods of eliminating targets in Hitman games, as the developer of Project 007 lends credence to this idea.
Even in the campy Bond films of the 60s to the 80s, the majority of his time on-screen was spent getting himself into the confidence of the enemy, sneaking around their bases, and seducing their female minions. Even the most brutal of fight scenes in James Bond were carried out with blows, not bullets. In the Fleming novels, he is even more focused on staying out of the line of fire to focus on quietly and cleanly engineering his nemesis' downfall. In the original Casino Royale, Bond possesses two guns and fires neither in the course of the book, though he is nearly bombed and shot himself.
In the 2006 film adaptation, the guns only come out when subterfuge fails and neither side has a choice but to go loud. Shooters, where Bond has been consigned for the past two decades, must justify their main gameplay loop by giving the player a lot of targets to blast away. Many of the best first-person shooters have been built upon this principle, but for Bond, gunning down wave after wave of baddies is simply not what the character is about.
The Spy Game Players Want
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Unshackling Bond from yet another attempt to recapture the magic of Goldeneye 007 unleashes a lot of opportunities for prospective designs. Say Bond has been tasked with infiltrating a high-class dinner party to steal vital documents from a crooked billionaire. From the start, the player can choose how to approach the situation. They could take the direct route of quietly shooting every guard between themselves and the objective, but when all they have is a pistol (which they've already had to smuggle past security, they may not even have enough ammo to take on the 50 rifle-toting henchmen waiting to swarm at the first sign of trouble.
In this hypothetical scenario, a player could take a subtle route like a spy is supposed to. While sneaking past patrols and getting in and out without a trace has its own appeal, they decide to engage in the psychological appeal of social stealth. They could drift from table to table, striking up conversations or listening in. Perhaps one couple has a keycard for some backroom "private time." Another whispers that the host has a secret pacemaker. At the bar, a man complains about the blind spots in the security system. All are leads to be exploited.
If the player doesn't want to wait around for an opportunity, they could perhaps make one themselves. They could have MI6 give them some dirt on a party goer and pressure them into "accidentally" letting Bond into the backrooms. The game could let players hack into the enemy's mainframe to make the sound system play thrash metal on repeat as a distraction. If the player happens to get caught, the game doesn't have to be over. After all, classical Bond banter with the villain over a spot of torture is one of the franchise's most enduring tropes.
Why IO is the Best Choice for a James Bond Game
If all these options sound straight out of the many assassinations of Agent 47, one can understand why IO's development of Project 007 is so exciting for fans of classical James Bond. After literal decades out of the video game limelight, IO has the chance to put Bond back on the throne, not by copying the FPS formula from over 20 years ago, but by innovating upon its own strengths to give fans an espionage game worthy of the greatest spy in fiction.
With the success of its modern Hitman trilogy, players expect a game that understands the grounding of the character and honors the spirit of his legacy. As Bond's peers, the British SAS say, "Who Dares Wins." Players hope, for the sake of spy-lovers everywhere, that IO is feeling particularly daring with its latest project.
Project 007 is in development.