The James Bond games were a household staple growing up, with excellent titles like Tomorrow Never Dies, Nightfire, and of course, Goldeneye. Project 007 probably pops into my head on a weekly basis at this rate, as I’ve been eagerly awaiting the next game from Hitman studio IO Interactive. With Summer Game Fest on the horizon, could we get a view to a kill?
Project 007’s initial announcement trailer was released four years ago, and in that time we waved goodbye to Daniel Craig’s tenure as the world’s most iconic spy. With no movies set to hit the big screen, and no James Bond games on PlayStation and Xbox consoles since the abysmal 007 Legends, there’s a fresh chapter for Project 007 to kick off with an explosive bang. What we do know is that IO Interactive hopes to jumpstart an era of “multiple” potential new PS5 games and new Xbox games within the Bond world, and Project 007 would take influence from Bond games of the past.
The game is also billed, according to its official website, as the “very first James Bond origin story.” I still don’t understand that intention, given that books like Casino Royale or the Young Bond series shed a light on Bond’s past, and his road to gaining his license to kill. Perhaps Project 007 will follow moments like Bond’s first assassination, just like how we saw in the big screen adaptation of Ian Fleming’s first Bond adventure. Yet, despite all this, details on Project 007 are exceptionally slim, but it is the perfect type of surprise ripe for Summer Game Fest.
And lady luck could be on my side, as Geoff Keighley said in a recent Twitch Q&A that “this [Summer Game Fest] is largely focused on announced stuff.” Project 007 firmly fits in that “announced stuff” box. While we already know that developers like Embark Studios will be there, and 2K Games is preparing for a big announcement, the current roster is only billed as “round 1.”
The desperate Bond fan in me wants to believe that IO Interactive is lurking like a spectre in the shadows. There’s a whole two hours of showtime to fill up, and giving us a quick taster of Bond’s current-gen debut only needs to take up a maximum of two minutes in there.
All the pieces for a stirring Bond adventure were laid down with the recent Hitman trilogy, some of the best games in the stealth genre that I’ve ever played – perhaps the best of all? Sorry, Splinter Cell. Hitman 3’s globetrotting from lush banquets inside of Dubai highrises to secret underground laboratories is pure Bond, and the game’s god tier marriage of world-class level design, satisfying gunplay, and player urgency has me salivating at the thought of what Project 007 will do with all of that. This is IO Interactive, after all, and nobody does it better.
In other gaming news, get ready for the Xbox Games Showcase with our stacked list of predictions, and prepare for the Black Ops 6 Direct that follows it with these mysterious Warzone teasers.
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