After saying today that future 007 games would be handled by Amazon Games and MGM rather than other parties, fans began to doubt the prospects of a First Light trilogy. The company then issued a new statement, seemingly reassuring the community that it has a “great relationship” with IO Interactive.
That is according to Kotaku, who, citing VGC, writes that an Amazon spokesperson said it’s “too early” to discuss future 007 projects and reassessed the company’s ownership over the IP.
They added, however, that Amazon enjoys a “great relationship” with 007 First Light developer IO Interactive “and are proud of what we’ve accomplished together.”
“Our partners at IO will reveal more about 007 First Light in the near future, and we’re looking forward to sharing what’s next,” the spokesperson said.
This comes after Amazon Game Studios chief Jeff Gattis implied IO Interactive would no longer work on 007 or create its own trilogy, which I had high hopes for. He said Amazon didn’t have “full rights” over 007 First Light since it was licensed out to IOI prior to Amazon’s acquisition of MGM, the owner of the Bond IP. Future projects, Gattis said, are to be handled by MGM “and, theoretically, by Amazon Game Studios.”
On social media, fans lit up to this news, saying Amazon “learned nothing” from its past, rather poor, experiences with video games. “I feel bad for IO, to put so much effort into this only to instantly lose the license,” another user on Reddit wrote, with others raising concerns over the future of the 007 license considering Amazon’s track record with cancellations and shutdowns.
I, for one, hope IO Interactive has sorted things out with Amazon and will work on more Bond games to come. However, seeing as this is one of the world’s biggest corporations and certainly one that has all the resources and capacities to produce a game on its own, I feel rather gloomy hearing all this. Even with the “clarified” statement, Amazon again reaffirmed the stance that this is their IP and they can do what they want with it, even if it means cutting out a developer as wonderful as IO Interactive is.
But at least IOI isn’t going anywhere and can still make original titles or games in other universes.
