After the latest update that merged Agent 47’s last three titles into the behemoth hit Hitman World of Assassination, IO Interactive seems ready to let our bald old assassin friend take a well-deserved break. The developers themselves, on the other hand, have no plans to pull the handbrake, but are working hard on the infamous James Bond game that was announced about three years ago.
Since the announcement, however, it has been painfully quiet about the British super spy’s return to the gaming world, but in a new interview with Eurogamer, two of the studio’s co-owners shared; Hakan Abrak and Christian Elverdam (also “chief creative officer”) with them about a couple of details about how they have chosen to tackle the project.
“First of all, it’s extremely awe-inspiring and literally just inspiring to work with the team at Eon (Productions), the people who are behind everything Bond,” said Elverdam, implying that he always “used to defending Agent 47” from people who chose to interpret the Hitman series in different ways that were not always so successful. For example, the films have been very coolly received by the fans.
“Obviously for them, that is their role in the Bond franchise. So 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), which I think 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.”
It also turned out that the upcoming Bond game had been planned since 2013 when IO was in the process of reinterpreting the Hitman concept to what it looks like today. “I can’t recall the exact date but at some point it obviously became an interesting discussion of ‘What if…?’ Because at that point in time, obviously, there hadn’t been a Bond game for ages.”
Part of the appeal of exploring Agent 007 was that Bond constantly goes through different kinds of changes between different movies and books, not least how the number of actors who have portrayed the hero is starting to approach double digits. With that, Abrak wanted to say that the team wants to build “something that can stand next to the TV and the movies,” and not something that just “capitalising on IP.” So far, we don’t know much about the project or when the game is supposed to be released on the market, but we at the editorial office are very much looking forward to once again saving the world in the role of charming 00 agent, this time under the safe auspices of IO Interactive.
Which is your favorite of the classic James Bond games?
