As the owner of the James Bond franchise, Amazon is keen to have more of a say in the coming 007 First Light sequels.
There’s no denying that 007 First Light has been a tremendous success for IO Interactive and proof that it was the best choice for developing a new big budget James Bond video game.
First Light has already outperformed IO’s Hitman games, as it’s not only the studio’s highest scoring game on Metacritic, but its fastest-selling game ever, pushing 1.5 million copies in just one day. It’s also estimated to have sold over 2.2 million copies so far, according to Alinea Analytics.
This makes First Light’s blatant sequel bait well deserved, but it also means Amazon, the rights holder of the James Bond franchise, has taken a worrying interesting in the next game.
Jeff Gattis, the general manager of Amazon’s gaming division, told Polygon any First Light sequel will be ‘done by MGM and, theoretically, by Amazon Game Studios.’
He added, ‘We did not [make First Light]. We do have a stake in it because we now own the IP.’
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Amazon’s name may appear during First Light’s opening credits, but the company was not involved with its development. It didn’t even publish the game; IO handled that itself.
That’s because First Light entered production before Amazon acquired the James Bond franchise as part of its buy out of MGM Studios, which was announced in 2022 but wasn’t approved until 2023.
It’s not entirely clear if Gattis is only referring to taking over publishing duties or if the plan is for new James Bond games to be made in-house and not at IO Interactive.
The latter sounds like a disastrous idea as not did IO do a great job but Amazon’s efforts at game development haven’t been very succesful. It’s cancelled multiple projects, including two attempts at a Lord Of The Rings MMO, and has found no real success with the games it has released.
The one exception has been MMO New World, but even that is now scheduled to shut down in early 2027, just over five years after launch.
If Amazon is smart, it’ll maintain a partnership with IO Interactive and let it continue to work on future Bond games. It’s doing this with Tomb Raider, striking a deal with series developer Crystal Dynamics to handle the Legacy Of Atlantis remake and the all-new sequel Tomb Raider: Catalyst.
Even so, it may exert more creative control on how Bond is depicted, especially once its plans for the next movie solidify. It’ll also probably try and squeeze more money out of the process for itself, potentially making a sequel far less profitable for IO.
Despite having a new Tomb Raider TV show in the works, Amazon Games’ vice president Christoph Hartmann very much downplayed the idea that it’s in any way connected to the new games.
‘Look at Spider-Man. There’s amazing, amazing games. There’s great animated content, there’s great live action, and everyone seems to be very happy with that. So it does not need to be always that everything is mingled together,’ he told Variety in 2024.
They may well take the same approach with 007, although there’s clearly going to be some awkward conversations with IO, who in the end may have ended up beng too successful.
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