IO Interactive Believes Its James Bond Game Could Mark The Start Of A New Trilogy

Sounds like they are doing something faithful with the IP and their recent efforts with Hitman give me faith we could see a definitive story driven James Bond game.

I’ve only played Hitman Absolution and thought it was great and actually thought it would have made a really good Bond game so it will be interesting to see.
Not played any of the new games but I have been tempted to get them

@WesEds Absolution is the black sheep of the Hitman family. It was kind of a linear third person stealth-action adventure. It's not a bad game, by any stretch, but it's scarcely a Hitman game. The whole lone wolf against a criminal army and police theme wasn't really Hitman either. Weird game. IIRC, the Kane & Lynch team made that game, and it basically played like a Kane & Lynch game with 47 stuck in it.

So if you loved Absolution you'll either hate the rest of Hitman, or you'll absolutely love them and wonder why you liked Absolution. The rest of the games, and especially the new trilogy are a lot more of what the name implies. You're a hitman. You have a target. You have a large area that you have to surveil and recon and find some scripted, or devise your own, methods of offing your targets. Collateral damage is discouraged. You can knock out anyone, though it's best to hide them, but kills are reserved for your mark(s.) It's very free-form and very unique in that you really have to look at all the options in the world around you and device how you're going to approach infiltration, extermination, and exfiltration. Without goons hunting you down, unless you mess up....because you're just another nobody in plain sight, and you were never there. To add gameplay value it's very replayable with various contract missions where you are encouraged to replay a scenario with different limitations or goals, (must use a certain weapon, or disguise, or can't use certain things.) It's surprisingly fun to re-think the whole approach and, with maps as large as the new trilogy, it can play out entirely differently.

The tutorial missions for the new trilogy have a mission on a party yacht (made of plywood because it's a facility training exercise.) You have to take out the owner of it. You start on the street outside....you can get a mechanic's disguise. You can get a guard's disguise. You can just sneak in as you. Inside you can get a sailor's disguise as well (by knocking out someone on the crew.) That all determines where you can't and can't access without raising suspiscion. To kill the guy you can always do it in cold blood (you probably won't make it out.) Wait to get him alone like with the scripted scenario and either garrot him, or silent pistol him. You can poison his drink while blending in as crew so that he has to run to the bathroom.....then take him out alone in the toilet. You can arrange an "accident" by rigging the life rafts from above where he sometimes stands......and then you just casually make your way off the boat, back to the car, and you're done.

That's the tutorial (one of them.) It's a small, closed in map. But it prepares you for the mindset you need when they drop you into Marrakesh in front of the Swedish embassy during a riot, and you have a lot more places to go and tools to use. But very different in gameplay and tone from Absolution. Much more sandbox, but not in the Ubisoft way.

Blood Money was actually a Gold freebie a year or two ago. It's an old game, but more "Hitman" than Absolution was.

Edit: Oh in the tutorial you can also rig a generator to explode on the lower decks if he goes down there. Or there's a VIP you can knock out and be an impostor, taking their disguise. There's probably quite a few ideas I haven't thought of, also.

I'd be A-OK with this just being a "bondified" version of these sandbox Hitman games, just with additional social options, talking past guards, pulling information from informants at the casino table, and seducing basically anyone tangentially related to the badguy

And if they really put in some effort, then it will actually release sooner than the latest James Bond movie...

It always bothers me when developers talk about sequels before the first game has even arrived. As much faith as I have in IO delivering the goods, Id prefer they (and every developer for that matter) focus on making one great game first and see what happens from there. Plus, from a narrative perspective, too many games have been left with loose ends untied because they weren't successful enough to get the intended sequel(s), and that really frustrates me. Bond has even had this problem before with Bloodstone.

It's encouraging to hear they're not tying their Bond to any actor, though. I've always said whoever takes on Bond needs to do what Rocksteady did with Batman, ignoring the existing continuity and come up with their own take on the brand.