Following the Quantum Of Solace tie-in and the stand-alone Blood Stone, Activision have announced that their next videogame outing for Daniel Craig's James Bond will be 007 Legends. Surprisingly, rather than concentrating solely on Skyfall, the game will "revisit six classic Bond films", linking them with a new umbrella narrative. Skyfall will be where the story ends up, but whether it's one of the six, or part of the linking story, remains to be seen.
"007 Legends offers a collection of Bond's most famed moments in the smartest and most treacherous Bond game yet," promises Activision's executive vice president David Oxford. "Creating a storyline that ties together six popular, yet very different, Bond movie narratives has been challenging, but together with EON Productions, our developer Eurocom has pulled it off to create an homage that we think will be unique and highly entertaining."
Speaking exclusively to Empire, the game's Associate Producer Dino Verano explains that the greatest-hits approach was conceived with the fiftieth anniversary of Casino Royale's publication in mind (see also the new novel, to be written by William Boyd). "What better way to celebrate than to include various movies from Bond's history in one game?" he asks.
Which movies? Will we get to drive the Aston Martin DB5 in the Goldfinger chase; do The Spy Who Loved Me's parachute ski-jump; hurl a bobsleigh down a mountain a la On Her Majesty's Secret Service; or attempt The Man With The Golden Gun's crazy 360 degree corkscrew Hornet flip over a bridge (while trying to ignore an awful swanee whistle sound effect)? Will there be period settings, like last generation's From Russia With Love game? Or will everything be updated, like the peculiar GoldenEye: Reloaded, which for some reason re-dressed arch-villain Alec Trevelyan in fetching pastel golf threads?
Activision aren't saying yet, but have confirmed that 007 Legends is taking the first-person-shooter route, rather than Blood Stone's third-person approach. "There was a lot of collaboration and discussion between Danjaq, Eon and Activision to pick which movies to include in the game," says Verano. "There are so many iconic and memorable Bond moments to pick from so it was a tough process, but I think fans will be really happy with what we’re creating."
We can also expect the now-traditional multi-player aspect to be present and correct. "Can’t help but include the four-player split-screen," Verano laughs. "There’s nothing quite like being able to throw a handful of chips in someone’s face while they’re trying to shoot at you. I'll never forget playing the original GoldenEye for the first time with a group of my close friends. Console shooters were still unheard of at the time and there weren’t that many games that took full advantage of the four controller ports that the N64 had to offer. There were definitely multiple arguments on whether being Oddjob was cheating or not. We finally settled on the rule that only my friend’s eight year old brother could ever be him!"
007 Legends should arrive for PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 in the autumn: sometime reasonably near Skyfall's release date on October 26, we'd guess. In the meantime, give us your thoughts on what classic Bond scenes you'd hope to see videogamed in the comments below.