IO Interactive, the developers behind the celebrated “Hitman” video game series, are teaming with MGM and EON Productions on “Project 007,” a new video game which will also serve as the first-ever James Bond origin story.
The synopsis says: “Featuring a wholly original Bond story, players will step into the shoes of the world’s favourite Secret Agent to earn their 00 status in the very first James Bond origin story.”
Game financier Delphi is also involved in the title which doesn’t have an expected release date at present. The project is currently in active development at IO Interactive’s offices in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Malmo in Sweden. Talent from around the world is being recruited at present to work on what will be a major title and is being done heavily in collaboration with the Bond gatekeepers at EON.
Espionage games are a notoriously difficult genre to pull off in gaming, but IO Interactive’s long running “Hitman” series has so far scored great acclaim for both their reboot in 2016 and its sequel in 2018, each game offering a handful of open world levels with assassination missions which can be carried out via a variety of creative approaches.
Like Bond, the “Hitman” games crisscross the globe and are often in suitably lavish locales where our blunt instrument of a lead character must take out assorted colorful antagonists. The team is currently finishing up the final entry in the current trilogy which launches in January.
After that, the focus will very much shift to the Bond project which will run on the same Glacier game engine as the “Hitman” games. The news comes as the fifth and final film outing of Daniel Craig in the role of James Bond, “No Time to Die,” will open in cinemas on April 2nd.
Source: Variety
