James Bond in video games

• 1. Introduction

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  James Bond in video games begins with one fictional MI6 agent, created by Ian Fleming. Many studios have tried to turn him into a playable hero. In 1997, a Nintendo 64 shooter called GoldenEye 007, made by Rare, sold over eight million copies. Around that success, the series has mostly been a tale of licences that changed hands, abrupt exits and projects that never reached shelves. The intellectual property is owned by Danjaq, and publishers have rotated through it for decades. Why did a character this famous find it so hard to stay in games? What did each company believe a Bond game should be? And what happens to a licence when nobody wants to hold it?

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• 2. Early Experiments

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  Shaken but Not Stirred reached players in 1982 as the first Bond game. A year later, Parker Brothers published James Bond 007 for several platforms. After that, the flow of releases widened. Mindscape, Domark, Interplay and THQ all made Bond games, drawing on the films, on Ian Fleming's novels, and on original scripts written by the developers or publishers.

  Those early titles mixed side-scrolling action with text adventures. The games earned a modest profit through the 1980s and the early 1990s. By 1995 the franchise was entering a stretch built around Nintendo hardware, and the licence itself was about to move toward Electronic Arts.

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• 3. Nintendo Breakthrough

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  Rare took the plot of the film GoldenEye and stretched it well beyond what audiences had seen on screen. The result was a first-person shooter with a multiplayer mode, and reviewers received it very positively. Before this game, the popularity of Bond games had risen only slowly.

  In 1998, Nintendo released James Bond 007 for the Game Boy, developed by Saffire. Its story gathered characters from several Bond films, including Oddjob and Jaws. The cartridge also tucked in gambling minigames, among them Baccarat and Blackjack.

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• 4. Electronic Arts Years

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  Black Ops Entertainment shaped the final form of the Tomorrow Never Dies game, which reached PlayStation in 1999. Critics gave it mixed reviews, yet it became a financial success.

  The World Is Not Enough followed in several versions on different platforms. Eurocom developed the Nintendo 64 edition, Black Ops Entertainment the PlayStation edition, and 2n Productions the Game Boy Color edition. All three drew different reactions from critics, and all three sold well. The first two were first-person shooters, while the Game Boy Color version was played from a top-down view.

  Agent Under Fire arrived in 2001 for PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox. It told an original story and lacked the likeness of Pierce Brosnan, then the Bond actor. The game added rail shooting and driving sections to the first-person format. It sold nearly 5 million copies, making it the second most successful game in the series despite mixed reviews. The console versions did not differ from one another.

  Nightfire came in 2002, timed to the 40th anniversary of the film series. Eurocom developed the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions, which used Brosnan's likeness but not his voice. Gearbox Software made the PC port and Aspyr the Mac port. Those computer editions had different missions, a modified story and online play. In 2003, JV Games produced a Game Boy Advance edition that differed from both the console and computer versions.

  In 2004, EA Redwood developed Everything or Nothing for GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The camera moved behind the hero in a third-person shooter with driving missions. Brosnan, Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe and John Cleese lent their voices and likenesses, among others. Bruce Feirstein, the screenwriter behind the films GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies, wrote the script. Its plot connected to the Roger Moore film A View to a Kill. Reviews were mostly positive, and Griptonite Games built a separate Game Boy Advance version.

  Later in 2004 came GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, a first-person shooter only loosely tied to the Bond franchise. Its hero is a former MI6 spy nicknamed GoldenEye, who works for Auric Goldfinger against Dr. Julius No. Reviews were mixed. It appeared on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Nintendo DS. EA classed both 007 Racing and Rogue Agent as spin-offs outside its main sequence.

  From Russia with Love, released in 2005, adapted the 1963 film. Sean Connery starred as Bond, and the other characters shared the likenesses of the original cast. It was a third-person shooter in the style of Everything or Nothing, with an expanded story. Legal problems forced one swap, with OCTOPUS standing in for SPECTRE. Reviews were positive, and the game appeared on GameCube, Xbox, PS2 and PSP.

  In 2006, Electronic Arts announced a game based on the upcoming Casino Royale. Daniel Craig was going to lend his voice and likeness for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The project was only 15 percent developed when it was cancelled, because EA could not finish it before the film opened in November. A missed release would have cost MGM millions in licensing fees. Add EA's wish to move away from film tie-ins toward its own properties, and the company abandoned the Bond franchise in May 2006. Unfinished screenshots of a Venice level, uncovered later, remain the visible trace of that lost game.

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• 5. Activision Years

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  In May 2006, Activision acquired non-exclusive rights to make Bond games, and those rights became exclusive in 2007. Its first release, Quantum of Solace, appeared on the 31st of October 2008. The game drew on the film of that name and on the earlier Casino Royale. Treyarch developed the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC versions. Eurocom handled the PlayStation 2 version and Vicarious Visions the Nintendo DS version. Reviews were mixed, and the PlayStation 2 edition fared best.

  At E3 2010, Nintendo revealed a new GoldenEye 007, a remake of the Nintendo 64 original. It targeted the Wii and Nintendo DS, with a modernised plot from a Bruce Feirstein script and Daniel Craig as Bond. Eurocom built the Wii version on EngineX, a game engine previously used for the rail shooter Dead Space: Extraction. The studio n-Space made the DS version. It reached all regions in November 2010 to positive reviews. About a year later, GoldenEye 007: Reloaded came to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 with HD graphics and new missions, plus PlayStation Move support on the PS3.

  Blood Stone, Activision's third Bond game, launched on the same day in November 2010. Bizarre Creations developed it as a third-person shooter with an original story. Daniel Craig, Judi Dench and Joss Stone starred, and Stone also sang the theme song, "I'll Take It All". It came out on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and DS to mixed reviews. Activision closed Bizarre Creations in early 2011, only months after release.

  On the 19th of April 2012, Activision announced 007 Legends to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the film franchise. It was billed as a greatest hits compilation, retelling six film stories under one overarching plot. The missions drew on Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Moonraker, Licence to Kill and Die Another Day. On the 9th of November 2012, a final mission based on Skyfall arrived as downloadable content. The game appeared on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii U to mixed reviews. Eurocom shut down soon after its release in December 2012.

  On the 4th of January 2013, online stores run by Activision and Steam removed the pages for Quantum of Solace, Blood Stone and 007 Legends without explanation. Three days later, it was confirmed that the Bond licence had been revoked. A month after that, Activision stated formally that it would step back from licensed games. The series then entered the stretch the record calls a hiatus, beginning in 2014.

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• 6. Games That Never Shipped

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  Parker Brothers announced Octopussy in 1983, shortly after James Bond 007 came out. The game was based on the film of the same name and planned for the Atari 2600 and Mattel Intellivision, among other systems. It was set for the summer of 1983. The company cancelled it soon after the announcement, for reasons that were never made public.

  In 1996, a racing version of GoldenEye 007 for the Virtual Boy was cancelled after being announced.

  The original VHS release of Tomorrow Never Dies carried a short trailer featuring Desmond Llewelyn. It advertised a game that would start where the film ends. Footage showed Bond skiing, scuba diving and driving in third person, plus a first-person shooting mission. MGM Interactive, not EA, was making it for PlayStation and PC in the fall of 1998. MGM's film division had licensed exclusive console rights to Nintendo for GoldenEye 007, so MGM had to buy some of those rights back.

  The game that did ship, on the 16th of November 1999 through EA, was different. It was a third-person shooter with no scuba level, and it followed the film's own plot. In one level, Bond skis down a mountain and kills a Japanese terrorist named Sotoshi Isagura, who appeared only briefly in the film. Another stage is a driving mission in Switzerland. Neither came from the film, so they may be survivors of the planned continuation.

  A separate project based on The World Is Not Enough would have used the Quake III Arena engine on PC and PlayStation 2. Electronic Arts dropped it in favour of Agent Under Fire. By 2001 the company felt too much time had passed since the film, and fans would lose interest as talks about Die Another Day began.

  In 2001, a PlayStation 2 sequel to 007 Racing was rumoured to be in development.

  EA Games began conceptual work on a project called Bond6 in 2003. It was meant to release in 2005 with Pierce Brosnan as Bond. When Brosnan announced he was stepping down, those plans ended, and a From Russia with Love adaptation began development instead. The opening level planned for Bond6 was retooled for the new game. CGI created for it was reused in television commercials for GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.

  In December 2010, screenshots and a video leaked online showing a new Bond game with gameplay like Blood Stone. Raven Software was reportedly developing it, but the project had been postponed six months before the leak. People then believed it had returned to development. Poor sales of Blood Stone ultimately killed it.

  In January 2012, Activision announced a full game based on Skyfall. It never appeared as a standalone release.

  Microsoft, which acquired Rare and its properties in 2002, scheduled a remaster of GoldenEye 007 for Xbox Live Arcade on the 27th of February 2008. The project was nearly finished, but Microsoft could not obtain publishing rights from the property's owner, Danjaq, LLC. Rumours suggested Nintendo or Activision might have played a part, but no source confirms that. In January 2021, a near-final build leaked from an unknown source, and many players ran the ROM through emulation.

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• 7. Lean Years and Return

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  On the 7th of January 2014, Kevin Bruner, president and co-founder of Telltale Games, said he would like to make a Bond game if given the chance. He said, "I'm a giant James Bond fan and I'm always frustrated by games that make him a mass murderer." In his view, the novels contain little killing and are mostly about spying and intrigue. In June 2017, a rumour claimed Telltale was working on a game called 007 Solstice. That looked unlikely after Telltale filed for bankruptcy and closed in November 2018.

  On the 21st of January 2016, Dominic Wheatley, president of Curve Digital, voiced his own interest. He said, "I'd be very happy to have a James Bond licence. We could do a cracking game around that." He argued that bigger firms overlook such chances, because Electronic Arts and Activision have their own properties. In his telling, they no longer want to "promote someone else's brand."

  TT Games produced a test animation in 2005 as part of a pitch for a Lego James Bond game. Lego, Activision and the Broccoli family initially approved it. The idea was abandoned shortly after Casino Royale arrived a year later, because its darker and more violent tone did not suit Lego's family-friendly audience. In 2016, Traveller's Tales pitched another Lego entry that would adapt events from multiple films. The Lego Group passed, citing the series' mature tone and its explicit violence and sexuality. An internal trailer under the codename "Gold" showed recreated Bond moments in a sizzle reel. It leaked in December 2024, and former TT Games tech director Paul Hughes corroborated it.

  Cypher 007 reached the Apple Arcade subscription service in September 2020 and won positive attention from Bond fans. In November 2020, IO Interactive announced Project 007, working closely with the licensors MGM and Eon Productions. The studio promised a "wholly original Bond story" in which "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." The game was officially unveiled as 007 First Light in June 2025. It was released on the 26th of May 2026 for PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S.

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• 8. Beyond the Consoles

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  Since 2002, the Bond character and the 007 trademark have appeared on mobile phones. The first two games, published by Vodafone, were based on action sequences from Die Another Day. One was titled Hover Chase and the other Ice Racer.

  When the film series was rebooted in 2006, Sony Online Entertainment released a side-scrolling action game based on Casino Royale. Glu Mobile developed it, following a storyline inspired by the film. The same team made a matching tie-in for Quantum of Solace in 2008. That year, Sony Online Entertainment Los Angeles also developed and published an arcade fighting game called Top Agent.

  In 2014, reports said Glu Mobile was working on another Bond game. A year later its title was revealed as World of Espionage, a point-and-click game retelling earlier storylines from the films. An early access mode began in July 2015, and the full version followed in November. The game was universally panned for uninspired material. It was removed from mobile stores in December 2016, and Glu Mobile pulled the plug.

  GoldenEye: Source entered development in 2005 and saw its international release in 2010, after five years in beta. Built on the Source engine, it is a total conversion mod based on the multiplayer mode of the Nintendo 64 game. Fans made many attempts to remake that game, but only this one succeeded. In 2013, a different team began porting the multiplayer of Nightfire to the Source engine, hoping to release it on Steam as Nightfire: Source. That project was still in development at last report.

  To mark the 25th anniversary of GoldenEye 007, another team began a remake in 2017 on Unreal Engine 4. It was based on the single-player campaign and aimed for a release in August 2022. In August 2020, Danjaq sent the team a cease and desist letter. The letter forbade the remake and stripped it of every licensed asset, including James Bond and related characters. The project was reborn as Spies Don't Die, an original experience "inspired by 90s first-person shooters".

  Forza Horizon 4 offers downloadable content with a pack of cars used in the Bond films, officially branded and licensed by Danjaq, LLC. Broforce parodies the spy with a playable character named Double Bro Seven, a pun on 007. His look is based on either Sean Connery, George Lazenby or Pierce Brosnan. He wears a tuxedo and uses a pistol, and one of his special skills involves a martini. That skill is needed for a trophy called "Shaken, not stirred".

  The Proximity Mine from GoldenEye 007 appears in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series, renamed the Motion-Sensor Bomb. It debuted in the first game and returned in all non-Japanese versions of Super Smash Bros. Melee. The Japanese version of Melee instead used the item's design from Perfect Dark, the spiritual successor to GoldenEye 007. Western releases list the bomb's origin as "TOP SECRET". From Super Smash Bros. Brawl onward, the bomb was redesigned completely and is treated as an original item of the series.

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