Activision backs Bond to shine

There is no new Bond movie on the horizon, but Activision says it can help plug the gap with two blockbuster Christmas releases.

The 23rd Bond movie was postponed indefinitely in April due to uncertainty over the future of film company MGM.

But that hasn’t derailed Activision’s plans for the licence – which it picked up in 2006. The firm will launch a re-imagining of GoldenEye for Wii at Christmas, along with a brand new adventure, Blood Stone, for Xbox 360 and PS3.

It is exciting that we have an original Bond-based narrative,” said Activision’s general manager of its European Licensed Business Unit, David Tyler.

The lines between the video game and movie experiences are becoming increasingly blurred. This isn’t the next Bond movie, clearly, but it is a very authentic brand-new narrative that will be big news for the Bond world this year.”

James Bond: Blood Stone is developed by acclaimed British studio Bizarre Creations, and features a story written by regular Bond writer, Bruce Feirstein. The game also features its own James Bond song, written and recorded by Joss Stone (who also plays a Bond girl in the game). Activision hopes that these elements will help win over the Bond faithful.

We know how passionate fans are about the treatment of this property,” added Tyler. So it’s important to get an authentic Bond experience into the game. That comes through the music, narrative, visuals and so on.

We are investing a lot of time, effort and resource to get these games right. Bizarre has been working on Blood Stone for quite some time, and we’ve always been excited about how good it is looking.”

Both games will benefit from extensive marketing, with GoldenEye also receiving support from Nintendo.

The GoldenEye game is exclusive to Nintendo platforms, so we are working really hard with Nintendo to bring this to the market,” added Tyler.