James Bond may not officially be a Hitman, but the makers of the latter’s video game franchise looks to be getting a crack at the former. Thursday brought a teaser trailer from IO Interactive for Project 007, a James Bond video game.
The teaser didn’t show any gameplay. In fact, the nearly minute-long video was quite literally a detailed look down the barrel of a gun. A bullet gets loaded in said barrel, and soon the camera pivots to the signature barrel iconography from the James Bond series. Cue the music, and it’s clear that the Bond video game franchise is getting new life here.
A website for the project also appeared on Thursday, promising a new version of the James Bond story not tied to any current or future movie.
Project 007 (working title) is a brand new James Bond video game to be developed and published by IO Interactive.
Featuring a wholly original Bond story, players will step into the shoes of the world’s favorite Secret Agent to earn their OO status in the very first James Bond origin story.
The video and website doubled as a job announcement, as the site encouraged game designers and developers to “join the team.” So it’s safe to say that the title is in its early stages of development. But it certainly is good news for fans of some of the series’ more iconic games, and people immediately started talking about Goldeneye on Twitter.
The iconic video game Goldeneye 007 for Nintendo 64 was created by only nine people. Eight of them had never worked on a video game before! pic.twitter.com/3v2FqizIdU
— Strange and Amazing Facts (@StrangeFactoid) November 19, 2020
* puts on GoldenEye 007 soundtrack * https://t.co/b9FYePuixo
— Walmart Canada Gaming (@WalmartCAGaming) November 19, 2020
just remaster Goldeneye https://t.co/xBuXIQ4CtK
— Gone Fishin’ (1997) (@punished_stu) November 19, 2020
However, don’t expect to see a next-gen Goldeneye anytime soon.
Goldeneye is trending. So let me remind everyone:
EON Productions owns 007.
IO Interactive owns the video game rights to 007.
Nintendo published Goldeneye on the N64.
Goldeneye was made by Rare, who is owned by Microsoft.A remaster of the N64 game ain’t happening.
— Matt McMuscles (@MattMcMuscles) November 19, 2020
A Bond game is exciting, but perhaps more notable is the lack of movie tie-in, which may allow the game to be developed at its own pace. Whatever story we get will be intriguing, but as gamers have long known it’s often best not to pin your hopes to movie tie-in games and the crunch that can come from sticking to someone else’s deadline.