| James Bond | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre(s) | Shooter,racing,role-playing |
| Publisher(s) | Parker Brothers Mindscape Domark Nintendo Electronic Arts (1999–2006) Activision (2007–2013) MGM Interactive (1999–2005) IO Interactive (2020–present) |
| Platform(s) | Atari 2600,Atari 5200,Atari 8-bit,ColecoVision,Commodore 64,SG-1000,Amstrad CPC,Apple II,Mac,MSX,Oric 1,Oric Atmos,Amstrad PCW,BBC Micro,Amiga,Atari ST,MS-DOS,Master System,NES,Super NES,Genesis,Game Gear,Nintendo 64,Game Boy, dedicated,PlayStation,Game Boy Color,PlayStation 2,GameCube,Xbox,Windows,Game Boy Advance,Nintendo DS,PlayStation Portable,PlayStation 3,Wii,Xbox 360,Wii U,Nintendo Switch,Xbox One |
| First release | Shaken but Not Stirred 1982 |
| Latest release | 007 Legends 2012 |
| Parent series | James Bond |
TheJames Bond video game franchise is a series centering onIan Fleming's fictional BritishMI6 agent,James Bond. Games of the series have been predominantlyshooter games, with some games of other genres includingrole-playing andadventure games. Several games are based upon theJames Bond films and developed and published by a variety of companies, The intellectual property is owned byDanjaq.
| 1982 | Shaken but Not Stirred |
|---|---|
| 1983 | James Bond 007 |
| 1984 | |
| 1985 | A View to a Kill |
| James Bond 007: A View to a Kill | |
| 1986 | James Bond 007: Goldfinger |
| 1987 | The Living Daylights |
| 1988 | Live and Let Die |
| 1989 | 007: Licence to Kill |
| 1990 | The Spy Who Loved Me |
| James Bond 007: The Stealth Affair | |
| 1991 | James Bond Jr. |
| 1992 | |
| 1993 | James Bond 007: The Duel |
| 1994 | |
| 1995 | GoldenEye (dedicated handheld) |
| 1996 | |
| 1997 | GoldenEye 007 |
| 1998 | James Bond 007 |
| 1999 | Tomorrow Never Dies |
| 2000 | The World Is Not Enough (N64) |
| The World Is Not Enough (PS) | |
| 007 Racing | |
| 2001 | The World Is Not Enough (GBC) |
| James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire | |
| 2002 | James Bond 007: Nightfire |
| 2003 | James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing (GBA) |
| 2004 | James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing (home consoles) |
| GoldenEye: Rogue Agent | |
| 2005 | James Bond 007: From Russia with Love |
| 2006 | |
| 2007 | |
| 2008 | 007: Quantum of Solace |
| 2009 | |
| 2010 | GoldenEye 007: Reloaded |
| James Bond 007: Blood Stone | |
| 2011 | |
| 2012 | 007 Legends |
| 2013 | |
| 2014 | |
| 2015 | |
| 2016 | |
| 2017 | |
| 2018 | |
| 2019 | |
| 2020 | |
| 2021 | |
| 2022 | |
| 2023 | |
| 2024 | |
| TBA | Project 007 (working title) |
In 1983,Parker Brothers released the first officially licensedJames Bond video game,James Bond 007, for multiple platforms.[1] An earlier unofficial game,Shaken but Not Stirred, had been released in 1982.[2]
Since 1983, there have been numerous video games based on the films,Ian Fleming's novels, and original scripts created by thedeveloper orpublisher of the game.Mindscape,[3]Domark,[4]Interplay,[5] andTHQ[6] all created James Bond games.
The video games were somewhat profitable[citation needed] in the 1980s and early 1990s, featuring a mixture of styles includingside-scrolling action andtext adventure.
The popularity of the James Bond video game series did not rise quickly until 1997'sGoldenEye 007 byRare for theNintendo 64.GoldenEye 007 expanded on the plot of the filmGoldenEye and is afirst-person shooter with amultiplayer mode.[7] The game received very positive reviews[8] and sold over eight million copies.[9]
In 1998,Nintendo releasedJames Bond 007 for theGame Boy developed bySaffire. The game features a story including characters from multiple James Bond films, such asOddjob andJaws. It also incorporates gamblingminigames, such asBaccarat andBlackjack.
Electronic Arts (EA) took over the license from MGM Interactive when a video game based onTomorrow Never Dies was in development in 1998. Taking the initial concepts for thevideo game adaptation, developerBlack Ops Entertainment handled the final form of the title and the game saw the light of day in 1999 onPlayStation[10] and met mixed reviews from critics, albeit becoming a financial success. The following entry was to be based onThe World Is Not Enough, consisting of several versions released on multiple platforms, including one onNintendo 64 developed byEurocom,[11] a version forPlayStation developed by Black Ops Entertainment, andGame Boy Color by 2n Productions, with all three meeting different results in spite of being commercially successful. Unlike the former two versions – first-person shooters – the Game Boy Color version is played from a top-down perspective.[12]
In 2001, EA releasedAgent Under Fire forPlayStation 2,GameCube, andXbox, featuring an original storyline[13] and lacking the likeness of then Bond actorPierce Brosnan.[11] The game added the elements of "rail" shooting and driving segments to a first-person shooter. The game sold nearly 5 million copies, making it the second-most successful game in the series, while only receiving mixed reviews. There are no differences between the console versions.
In 2002,Nightfire was released, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the film franchise and using Brosnan's likeness for the Bond character, but not his voice.[11] It was developed byEurocom for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox consoles, with aPC port byGearbox Software and aMac port byAspyr. The computer versions are substantially different from the console versions, featuring different missions, a modified story line, and online play. In 2003, the game also had aGame Boy Advance version byJV Games, which also differs from both the console versions and PC versions.
In 2004, EA releasedEverything or Nothing, developed by EA Redwood, for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Unlike the two previous installments,Everything or Nothing is athird-person shooter with driving missions, and it stars the voices and likenesses ofPierce Brosnan,Judi Dench,Willem Dafoe andJohn Cleese,[14] among others. It was written by the scriptwriter ofGoldenEye andTomorrow Never Dies, screenwriterBruce Feirstein, with a plot connected to theRoger Moore Bond filmA View to a Kill. It was released to mostly positive reviews. A different version ofEverything or Nothing was also developed byGriptonite Games for theGame Boy Advance.
Later that year,GoldenEye: Rogue Agent was released on the same platforms with the exception of the Game Boy Advance version. A first-person shooter loosely connected to the Bond franchise a spin-off, it stars a former MI6 spy[11] known as "GoldenEye", who works forAuric Goldfinger againstDr. Julius No. The game received mixed reviews. The game was released on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Nintendo DS. EA listed007 Racing andGoldenEye: Rogue Agent as spin-offs, out of their canonical order they have built.
2005 saw the release ofFrom Russia with Love, based on the 1963film of the same name. It starsSean Connery as James Bond, and the other characters had the same likeness of the original cast. The game is a third-person shooter in the same style asEverything or Nothing, with expansions in the story and certain details changed (such as tradingSPECTRE for OCTOPUS, due tolegal problems).[11] The game received positive reviews, and was released on GameCube, Xbox, PS2 and PSP.
Electronic Arts announced in 2006 a game based on then-upcomingCasino Royale,[15][16] but it ended up being cancelled, because it would not be ready by the film's release in November. This fact, which would leadMGM to lose millions in licensing fees, along with EA's commitment to move away from movie franchise games and focus more on internal intellectual properties, led the company to abandon the Bond franchise in May 2006.[17]
Shortly after Electronic Arts abandoned the license, in May 2006,Activision acquired non-exclusive rights to develop and publish James Bond games, which were to become exclusive in 2007.[18] Activision's first game wasQuantum of Solace, which was based on the 2008film of the same name as well as the previous filmCasino Royale.[19] It was developed byTreyarch for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC;Eurocom for PlayStation 2 andVicarious Visions for the Nintendo DS. The game was released on 31 October 2008 and received mixed reviews, with the PlayStation 2 version receiving the best reviews.[20]
AtE3 2010,Nintendo revealedGoldenEye 007, a remake for theWii of the 1997 game. Developed byEurocom, using theirDead Space: Extractiongame engine, the game updated the story of the movie, with a script byBruce Feirstein and the current Bond actorDaniel Craig as 007.[21] It was released in November 2010 in all regions and received positive reviews from critics. Approximately a year later, an enhanced port of the game entitledGoldenEye 007: Reloaded was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The port featured HD graphics, new missions andPlayStation Move support on the PS3 version.
Activision's third Bond game,Blood Stone was released on the same day asGoldenEye 007 in November 2010. Developed byBizarre Creations, the game returned to being a third person shooter, featured an original story and starred Daniel Craig, Judi Dench[11] andJoss Stone, the latter of which also sang on the game's theme song "I'll Take It All".[22] It was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and DS and received mixed reviews from critics. Developer Bizarre Creations was closed down by Activision in early 2011 just a few months after the game's release.
On 19 April 2012,Activision announced plans for a game titled007 Legends to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary ofthe James Bond film franchise.[23] The game was described as a "greatest hits compilation",[23] retelling six film narratives with an overarching storyline to connect them together. The missions were revealed to be based uponGoldfinger,On Her Majesty's Secret Service,Moonraker,Licence to Kill andDie Another Day. On 9 November 2012, Activision added the last mission to the game, released as a downloadable content, which was based onSkyfall. The game was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC andWii U and received mixed reviews from critics. DeveloperEurocom shut down soon after the game's release in December 2012.[24][25]
On 4 January 2013, Activision and Steam's online stores removed online availability and pages forQuantum of Solace,Blood Stone, and007 Legends without explanation or warning,[26] only to confirm three days later that the James Bond game license was revoked.[27] A month later, Activision themselves declared that they would be backing away from licensed games in a formal statement.[28]
On 7 January 2014, president and co-founder ofTelltale Games, Kevin Bruner had expressed an interest in making a future James Bond game if he were afforded the chance. He stated that "I'm a giant James Bond fan and I'm always frustrated by games that make him a mass murderer." When he was asked which license he would adapt next if money and licensing hurdles were not a factor. "He's a super-spy, and that's a different skillset. The films make him less of a mass murderer, and there's not much killing in the books – more spying and intrigue."[29] A rumour surfaced in June 2017 that Telltale was working on a video game entitled007 Solstice.[30] However, its status proved unlikely when Telltale filed for bankruptcy and closed down in November 2018.[31]
On 21 January 2016, president ofCurve Digital Dominic Wheatley expressed his interest alongside the company in the series, saying "I'd be very happy to have a James Bond licence. We could do a cracking game around that," adding that these opportunities are overlooked by the bigger firms, sinceElectronic Arts andActivision have their ownIPs and no longer want to "promote someone else's brand."[32]
In November 2020,IO Interactive announcedProject 007, a brand newJames Bond video game, working closely with licensorsMGM andEon Productions. IO described the game as a "wholly original Bond story" where "players will step into the shoes of the world's favorite Secret Agent to earn their 00 status in the very first Bond origin story."[33][34] The game is currently under development with no set release date, as of November 2024[update].[35]
Shortly afterJames Bond 007 was released in 1983 by Parker Brothers, another video game was announced, titledOctopussy, based on the film of the same name. The game was planned for release on the Atari 2600 System, Mattel Intellivision, and compatible systems. Set for release in the summer of 1983, it was cancelled for unknown reasons shortly after it was announced by Parker Brothers.[36]
A racing version ofGoldenEye 007 was announced for theVirtual Boy.[37] The game was cancelled in 1996.[38][39]
A remastered version of theNintendo 64 gameGoldenEye 007 byRare was scheduled for release onXbox 360'sLive Arcade on 27 February 2008, butMicrosoft (who acquired Rare and their intellectual properties in 2002) couldn't get the publishing rights from the intellectual property owners,Danjaq, LLC, resulting in the cancelation of the project, despite being nearly completed.[40] It was rumored thatNintendo (the publisher of the original title) orActivision (who had exclusive rights to publish video games based on the James Bond franchise at the time) may have been involved in the project's cancellation, but no sources confirm the rumor. Despite this, in January 2021, a near-final build of the game was leaked online from an unknown source, which led to many players playing the ROM via emulation.[41]
The original VHS release ofTomorrow Never Dies featured a brief trailer withDesmond Llewelyn which highlighted a game that would "start where the film ends".[42] Footage shows Bond skiing, scuba diving and driving in third person and on afirst-person shooting mission.[43] The game was to come out onPlayStation and PC in the fall of 1998 and was being made byMGM Interactive, notEA; EA was not involved in Bond until November of that year.[44] Because MGM's motion picture division had licensed exclusive James Bond console rights to Nintendo (forGoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64), MGM had to buy some of their rights back from Nintendo in order to make the game.[45]
ATomorrow Never Dies game was released on 16 November 1999, distributed by EA, but with notable differences from the 1998 attempt. The game was athird-person shooter with no scuba diving level. The story follows the plot of the film, not the continuation that had been planned.
A level in the game sees Bond skiing down a mountain and killing a Japanese terrorist named Sotoshi Isagura (who had featured very briefly in the film), while on another stage Bond has a driving mission in Switzerland. These were not from the film and may have survived from the 'continuation' story.
A game based on the 1999 filmThe World Is Not Enough film and using theQuake III Arena engine for thePC andPlayStation 2 was cancelled in favour ofAgent Under Fire.[46] Electronic Arts thought, by 2001, that too much time had passed since the release of the film, and that fans would be no longer interested in the product as talks of the succeeding film in the series,Die Another Day, were taking place.[47]
A PlayStation 2 sequel to007 Racing was rumoured to be in development.[48]
EA Games began conceptual work on the game in 2003, under the working title ofBond6. The game was originally meant to be released in 2005, set to starPierce Brosnan asJames Bond. A video game adaptation ofFrom Russia with Love began development when Brosnan announced that he was stepping down from the role, which ended plans forBond6. The opening level planned for the former was retooled for the latter, and CGI work intended for the game was reused in television commercials forGoldenEye: Rogue Agent.[49]
A game was in development based onthe film of the same name.Daniel Craig, in character as Bond, was going to give his voice and likeness to the video game. It was set to release on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. The game was 15% developed when the project was cancelled, as Electronic Arts would not finish it by the film's release in November 2006. Later, unfinished development screenshots from the Venice level were uncovered.[17][15][16] Activision's debut in the series,Quantum of Solace, combines the storylines ofCasino Royale andQuantum of Solace.
In December 2010, some screenshots and a video were leaked online that depicted a new James Bond game, which shared similar gameplay to its predecessor,Blood Stone. Reportedly, the project had been in development byRaven Software, but was postponed six months prior to the leak, at which point the game was believed to be back in development. However, the game was ultimately cancelled due toBlood Stone's poor sales.[50]
In January 2012, it was announced that a video game based onSkyfall would be released by Activision.[51] Ultimately, a downloadable level based onSkyfall was released for Activision's007 Legends, although a full game was not released.[52]
In 2016,TT Games pitched aJames Bond themed entry in their long running line ofLego games, which would adapt the events of multiple films. The pitch was rejected bythe Lego Group due to the films' adult themes and level of violence being too extreme for the Lego brand's family-friendly demographic. A trailer for the game was later leaked in 2024.[53]
Since 2002, games featuring the Bond character and the007 trademark have been published and distributed on mobile phones. The first two are based on action sequences fromDie Another Day, one of them is titledHover Chase and the other isIce Racer. Both were published byVodafone.
With the official reboot of the film franchise in 2006,Sony Online Entertainment released a side-scroll action game based onCasino Royale developed byGlu Mobile, following a storyline inspired by the film. Similarly, an identical tie-in based onQuantum of Solace was released in 2008 by the same team. The same year, Sony Online Entertainment Los Angeles developed and published an arcadefighting game to coincide with the aforementioned film, entitledTop Agent.
In 2014, it was reported that Glu Mobile was working on another mobile game bearing the James Bond license.[54] A year later, its title was revealed asWorld of Espionage,[55] apoint-and-click game retelling several previous storylines from the film series, debuting anearly access mode in July 2015 and releasing a full version of the game in November later that year.[56] The game, after being universally panned for its uninspired content, was removed from the online mobile stores in December 2016 and Glu Mobile pulled the plug on the title.[57]
With the popularity laid byGoldenEye 007 in 1997 on the Nintendo 64, fans of the video game have made many attempts to remake or recreate the title with updated makeovers on current engines over time. But, only one project succeeded. EntitledGoldenEye: Source, the game entered development in 2005 and officially saw its international release in 2010, five years after being inbeta mode hosted by theSource engine. It is atotal conversion mod based on the multiplayer mode from the aforementioned title.
A different team initiated similar attempts in 2013 to port the multiplayer mode fromNightfire (2002) to the Source engine, hoping to release it onSteam under the titleNightfire: Source. The project, as of today, remains in development.[58][59]
To commemorate the video game's 25th anniversary, another project based onGoldenEye 007 entered development in 2017 onUnreal Engine 4, with the aim of releasing it sometime in August 2022, based on the title'ssingle-player campaign.[60] However, in August 2020, the team received acease and desist letter fromDanjaq, forbidding the remake and stripping its use of any licensed asset related to the property, includingJames Bond and related characters.[61] The project was reborn asSpies Don't Die – an original experience "inspired by 90s first-person shooters".[62]
Downloadable content featuring a pack of cars used in the James Bond films is available inForza Horizon 4, officially branded and licensed by Danjaq, LLC.[63][64]
James Bond is parodied inBroforce as a playable character, Double Bro Seven, whose name is a pun on Bond's code number007, with his appearance being based on eitherSean Connery,George Lazenby orPierce Brosnan. Just like the actual Bond, he wears a tuxedo and uses a pistol. Unlike other characters in the game, he has a variety of special skills, including a martini, needed for a trophy called "Shaken, not stirred", which is a joke on a famous Bond catchphrase.
| Literature | |
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| Films | |
| Video games | |
| Television | |
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| Related | |
