When Ian Fleming first introduced James Bond to readers in 1953, Agent 007 was ready and raring to go. Casino Royale is not a novel that slowly builds its protagonist into his ultimate form – Bond has yes That. Indeed, crucially to the novel’s narrative, Bond is an experienced agent, the best poker player in the business, and trustworthy.
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Fleming’s argument always seemed to be that Bond was a force of nature; by the time we met him, he was already An interesting character whose exploits the audience is willing to follow – no matter how he got there. The man’s heart is hardened. Those first killings have already occurred and are mentioned in passing. The fact that his first kill is so crudely covered up and described speaks to his ruthless nature. No big deal.
In order to enter the world of 007, Hitman studio IO Interactive took a different path. In a new interview with iGamesNews parent company IGN, studio boss Hakan Abrak casually reconfirmed the nature of their Bond game as an origin story for a new version of the character that will exist in the film in a separate classic.
“It’s very exciting, all the tradition and all the history coming together, with the family, to create a young Bond for gamers; a bond that players can call their own and grow with,” said Abrak . And, you know – I think it’s a good idea.
In my opinion, there are only two options for a James Bond game in 2024. The first option is to cast a familiar face but craft a different story than contemporary Bond. For example, you could get the irrepressible Timothy Dalton (secretly the best Bond, by the way) back in the studio and make a fantastic 80s period piece – maybe even adapt one he didn’t make The script for the third film. Or you can make an original Bond.
As a Bond fan whose knowledge of the series sadly only stops at a degree level, I feel strongly that contemporary Bond video games don’t really work in today’s era of highly story-driven gaming. Daniel Craig-era games desperately wanted to match the tone, timbre, and canon of his films, but as the game versions of his series evolved from film to film, they ultimately fell by the wayside.
Simply put, the creators of the actual movies don’t care what the games are doing. The best game of Craig’s era was 2010’s GoldenEye, based on an old story, and that’s saying something. The game does a great job of recasting the nineties narrative into the era and style of Craig’s film, but it still suffers from the same problems, really. It’s a competent enough Call of Duty clone with some spy thriller flair – but it never really fit Relevant to the Bond franchise at the time.
All of this is the result of the Bond series’ chameleonism. Like other great British multi-actor characters and institutions (the Doctor, naturally), Bond and his franchise have actually changed quite a bit. The sections of the film change with the passage of time, from Connery’s brutality and sexism at the beginning, to Moore’s playfulness and wry smile in the soundtrack, from the disco music of the seventies to the end of Brosnan’s new post-Cold War laboratory. One scene – variety taken. The next Bond film will surely be one in the era of TikTok, cancel culture and a post-truth world moving ever closer to all-out war.
But even within An era, parameters change – Craig’s Bond and his films have changed dramatically in the fifteen years he has played the character. Since games take five or more years to make, this moving target is too broad for the game to anchor itself to.
So, I agree with IO’s vision for an original Bond in video games – the medium can afford it, and it can actually allow for characterization that’s better suited to the type of action you see in video games. There are huge storytelling opportunities, but there are also big risks.
Like I said, Fleming wrote this character into the book casino royale As The Guardian’s Steven Poole rightly calls it a “fully formed force of nature”, although I don’t think Fleming’s storytelling technique was quite as brilliant as his original idea (and, frankly, since There were many better writers to write for Bond in the future) ), and there was a big risk in going against his framework.
Specifically, what I don’t want to see is all of these bloody Spy movie tropes. Yes, Bond himself established many of these tropes – but there are plenty of Bond series that never succumb to them. In a sense, it’s a tricky balancing act: making sure the game and its world embrace all those lovable clichés that make the Bond series what it is, while also avoiding some of the more tiresome elements of the genre that don’t Not the key to the Bond series. character or brand.
I’m all for a young Bond, or at least a newbie with Double-O’s identity; but what I really don’t want to do is tread on those traditional origin story tracks. You know his type – this was his mentor; his mentor was killed. Maybe Double-O status is part of it. His first mission is more than just a mission: it’s to avenge his mentor and more. A million other spy series have told these stories. You can do more with Bond without wandering down these dead ends.
For IO’s young Bond, Hope Studio and its writers took a closer look at other examples where series administrators saw fit to go against Fleming’s lack of concrete origins.
In the film version of Casino Royale, we do see Bond gain Double-O status by completing his first two kills – but this is brief in the opening scene. The rest of the movie is really about Bond’s rise – but to use a clumsy metaphor, the movie isn’t about a caterpillar slowly spinning its cocoon and transforming into a murderous butterfly, we’re in Craig The Bond we met at the beginning of the first film has emerged from that cocoon. .
Six and a half minutes into the film, the words appear on the screen: “James Bond – 007 status confirmed.” He is already Bond. He doesn’t cry over his first kill or sweat over his first mission, nor do we see a sequence of him learning from some gruff MI6 mentor he’s destined to surpass . By the seventh minute, his status was confirmed. Even the theme song confirms this, with the late Chris Cornell crooning “You Know My Name.” He is James Bond. Fluff is skipped.
Even more worthy of consideration is Anthony Horowitz’s excellent novel “Forever Day.” While writers have made vague additions to the Bond canon over the years, Horowitz was the first to truly integrate himself into the Fleming estate and write sequels to both the original novel and the classic. But in 2018, he decided to write a prequel. Here we get Bond’s first mission as Double O; the man has matured again, but isn’t rough around the edges yet, and you can witness the mission slowly polish him into a character we can more easily identify with. This is good stuff.
You could even take a lesson from Charlie Higson’s Young Bond novels. It’s a complete series – but most importantly, it eschews the young, novice Bond on an MI6 mission. It’s a posh Eton orphan (a bit of a shit, to be honest) who gets into character building troubles. These are good enough post-Harry Potter books for young adults, but for my money they’re nothing – but they do inspire some do’s and don’ts for the characters.
Basically, you get a bit of insight into Bond’s history – but it’s a delicate balance that’s difficult to thread. Part of Bond’s appeal is that, although much is known about him, he remains something of a mystery – the nature of his war service, his parents, his upbringing – even his early years in MI6.
Video games can offer slow, longer storytelling with lots of exciting characters, series, and universes to explore. There are also exciting gameplay options, and Hitman proves that there’s nothing better for Bond than IO. But while making all of these choices, it’s important not to take away from your character’s edge. Pray that IO will land smoothly.
