After almost four years, we still don’t know much about Project 007, the mysterious James Bond project from Hitman developer IO Interactive. But a new interview reveals that, yes, the game is still in the works, is going “amazingly well,” and that it features an original take on Bond.
IGN spoke with IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak about the project, and while he still couldn’t announce anything, he said that the team is hoping for a trilogy starring this new Bond, who won’t be tied to any previous story.
“What’s exciting about that project is that we actually got to do an original story. So it’s not a gamification of a movie. It’s completely beginning and becoming a story, hopefully for a big trilogy out there in the future,” Abrak said. “And equally important and exciting, it’s a new Bond. It’s a Bond we built from ground up for gamers. It’s extremely exciting with all the tradition and all the history there is there together to work on this together with the family of creating a young Bond for gamers; a Bond that the gamers can call their own and grow with.”
IO Interactive previously worked on the Hitman series, which has given them decades of experience making games about a secret agent. They haven’t said if the Bond game will feature the stealth gameplay the series is known for, but Abrak mentions that the studio will have more to share soon … or rather “in due time.”
This is the first new information we’ve gotten about Project 007 since IO released a short teaser trailer in 2020. The team revealed then that it was a “wholly original… James Bond origin story” and that they would be in charge of development and publishing. And that’s about all we know.
This will be the first James Bond game since Activision’s 007 Legends in 2012, which made playable versions of missions from the films. Of course, the standout James Bond adaptation is the Nintendo multiplayer shooter GoldenEye 007, which you can still play via Xbox or Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack.
IO Interactive also announced Wednesday that it would be partnering with Build a Rocket Boy, the studio founded by former Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies, to publish its first game, MindEye. However, IO clarifies that it has no intention of being a publisher unless the game is “special.”
“It needs to be something that we see ourselves in, not only logically but also emotionally. So I cannot rule out that we don’t do something else,” Abrak said.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.