Hitman 3 developer IO Interactive has hinted that its upcoming James Bond game, tentatively named Project 007, could very well be just the beginning of the Danish studio’s involvement with the British spy after the game’s expected arrival on PS5 and Xbox within the next few years.
Speaking to Edge as part of a recent interview discussing IOI past and present, CEO and co-founder Hakan Abrak expresses his dream to replicate the World of Assassination trilogy when it comes to Bond: “I would love players to look back on multiple Bond games by IO and go, ‘Wow, that was quite a journey!'”
Project 007 – an original IO Bond story – is set to follow the first Bond’s rise to prominence. In a previous edition of Edge, Abran says Project 007 is set to be “the ultimate spycraft fantasy,” with the game’s tone set to more closely resemble Roger Moore’s stint as the legendary spy than Daniel Craig’s – something perhaps slightly lighter than the more serious Bond outings of recent times.
Project 007 marks the first new Bond game for over a decade – an opportunity for IOI to not only bring the suave spy to current-gen consoles for the first time, but to potentially displace 1997’s GoldenEye 007 as the Bond game. While the IP has since enjoyed critical success with subsequent titles 007: NightFire, James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing, and even 2010’s Daniel Craig-fronted reimagining of the original GoldenEye 007, the Nintendo 64 classic – which sits at a mighty 96 overall on Metacritic – perseveres as the ultimate litmus test.
Coming off the success of the rebooted Hitman series, the critically acclaimed Hitman 3 had yet to arrive before IOI announced that it would be taking on Project 007. At the time, we couldn’t imagine a studio better suited (and booted) to take on Bond than the one already crafting some of the best stealth games ever, and after spending many, many, hours in Hitman 3 that thought only crystallized further.
But where does the shift from Agent 47 to 007 leave our follicly-liberated protagonist? According to CCO and co-owner Christian Elverdam, despite the “ramping down” of Hitman support “there’ll be more chapters written in the Hitman story, that’s for sure.” When we’ll return to the World of Assassination from the World of Spycraft, however, is a complete unknown.
If you’ve yet to jump into one of the best PS5 games and best Xbox games in Hitman 3, then be sure to fix that before Project 007 hits the shelves. If you’re on the fence, then check out our Hitman 3 review for our thoughts on IOI’s magnum opus – unsurprisingly, we think it’s brilliant.