James Bond: the ultimate spy. The secret agent that other secret agents check under the bed for at night, although that’s probably less to do with their concerns about his martial arts prowess and more about his penchant for sexual congress. Hey, honey, whose Aston Martin is that in the driveway? And why is it beeping?
At any rate, conceived by WWII British Naval Intelligence officer Ian Fleming as a cocktail of the many killer elite commandos and secret agents he met during his time in the service, the iconic James Bond has clearly come a long way from his literary beginnings in 1953. Bond quickly migrated from the pages of Fleming’s novels to radio plays, comic books, and – of course – a film series that’s lasted over 60 years. There aren’t many movie franchises that have been around longer. Not this side of Godzilla, at least.
Now, James Bond’s video game history obviously isn’t quite as storied as his silver screen exploits, but it still stretches back well over 40 years. So, whether you’re unfamiliar with Bond games, or you’re just after a quick refresher, we’ve assembled a full history of James Bond games right here, so all you need to do is pour yourself a dry martini and slip into something more comfortable.
To uncover the very first James Bond game we need to go back to 1982, but there is a slight twist to it. 1982’s Shaken but Not Stirred! was developed and published by Richard Shepherd Software for the ZX Spectrum computer, an underrated icon of 8-bit gaming that played an instrumental role in the home computer revolution – and helped inspire an entire generation of UK game designers in the process. Richard Shepherd, a certified accountant, was one such man. Urged on by his wife, Elaine – who suggested he look into adventure games after she’d been shown one while visiting a work client – Shaken but Not Stirred! came together as a classic text adventure.
In 1982, text adventure games were at the peak of their popularity – and the genre was the only real way to have complex adventures in interactive form at the time. ‘Complex’ may be a slight overstatement when it comes to Shaken but Not Stirred!, though it is bizarrely impenetrable at times. That is, I began the game by being instantly abducted and shot dead, before being reincarnated by the game designer, and I left sometime after getting lost in a randomised ocean and shooting my second octopus.
However, what’s particularly interesting about Shaken but Not Stirred! is that it was never actually an official Bond game at all. Richard Shepherd Software never had the rights to make an official Bond game, something that seems obvious when you note Moneypenny’s transparent name change – but admittedly less so when ‘Miss Cashcoin’ is introduced directly beneath the sentence “A James Bond Adventure.”
Yes, perhaps – especially since, by 1982, the Bond license had already been secured by Parker Brothers. Unfortunately for Richard Shepherd Software, the American toy and board game giant was ramping up its video game efforts at the time after snatching up the lucrative rights to publish Star Wars games, and Bond was another hot property it jumped on. Resultingly, Shaken but Not Stirred! was rapidly re-issued as Super Spy and, in 1983, Parker Brothers released what’s technically the first official Bond video game: James Bond 007, for Atari, ColecoVision, and Commodore 64. A version called 007 James Bond was also released in Japan for the SG-1000, Sega’s first-ever home console.
James Bond 007 is a side-scrolling vehicle shooter with three or four levels, depending on the version you played. Each is extremely loosely based on a moment from four Bond films released between 1971 and 1981: The Spy Who Loved Me, Diamonds are Forever, Moonraker, and For Your Eyes Only. You don’t control Bond himself so much as you control a transforming Bond car, although it realistically spends most of its time as a kind of jumping submarine.
James Bond 007 otherwise plays like a short and safe clone of existing side-scrolling vehicle shooters from the dawn of the ’80s, and you can certainly argue the bulk of the Bond flavour comes from the 007 logo slapped on the front. The official license did, however, bring along with it the opportunity to use the Bond theme for the first time – which is an admittedly crucial component of the Bond experience.
1985 arrived with two separate Bond games, both based on A View to a Kill. It was the new Bond film for that year, and the final featuring Roger Moore.
The first is an action game for a variety of home computer platforms, including ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, and Commodore 64.
Published by Domark Software – a short-lived company that spent the late ’80s and early ’90s publishing only Bond games before merging with Eidos in 1996 – its version is broken up into three chunks. It opens with a driving level, which is followed by two rudimentary action sections. The three-games-in-one approach was novel enough, but ultimately the game was not especially well-received.
A View to a Kill’s other game tie-in was a text adventure for MS-DOS, Apple II, and Macintosh, and one of the first games published by Mindscape. Interestingly, A View to a Kill’s text adventure was written by Texas author Raymond Benson. 12 years later Benson would be tapped to take over writing duties for the continuation of the James Bond novel series, stepping in for the retiring John Gardner who had stewarded the Bond books throughout the ’80s and ’90s.
Benson would go on to contribute to the next Mindscape Bond game in 1986, which was another text adventure for the same platforms – this time based on 1964’s Goldfinger.
However, while Mindscape returned to a past Bond adventure, Domark decided to remain in the present with its 1987 tie-in for Timothy Dalton’s Bond debut: The Living Daylights.
For The Living Daylights, Domark opted for a traditional, side-scrolling shoot’em up approach, developed for what appears to be just about every major home computer system of the era. The result wasn’t revolutionary, but it was a considerable step-up from A View to a Kill.
Beginning with Bond’s training exercise against the SAS in Gibraltar and ending in the villainous Whitaker’s mansion, The Living Daylights might be a bit basic, but it at least effectively mirrors the plot of the movie upon which it’s based. The ability to choose a different weapon before each level also adds some additional replayability.
With no new movie in cinemas in 1988, Domark’s next Bond game for home computers was loosely inspired by 1973’s Live and Let Die – which had been the first to feature Roger Moore. The key word here is loose, as Live and Let Die is exclusively a… speedboat shooter.
While it’s true the iconic speedboat chase is one of the most memorable moments of Live and Let Die, basing a whole game around it stretches the concept to breaking point. It has just four levels, only the last of which is ostensibly focused on disrupting Dr. Kanaga’s drug operation. The remainder are extra training levels set about as far away from the setting of Live and Let Die as you can get. How far? The Sahara Desert, and the North Pole.
However, there is a reason that Live and Let Die barely feels like a Bond game, and that’s because it was never meant to be one. In truth, Domark simply got wind of a speedboat shooter at UK software house Elite Systems called Aquablast. Domark subsequently pulled the plug on a boat blaster project it already had on the boil with a different developer, slapped a 007 logo on Aquablast, and published that instead. It seems Live and Let Die was always going to be stuck in a boat, but going with Elite got it done faster.
In 1989, Timothy Dalton’s second and unfortunately final Bond film hit the big screen, and Domark unsurprisingly had a game to coincide with it. Licence to Kill, again developed for all major home computers of the era, was yet another new approach for a Bond adaptation – this time it was a top-down, vertically-scrolling shooter. It was rather tricky, but arguably serviceable enough compared to similar games of the era. 1989 also saw a light-gun enabled version of 1987’s The Living Daylights bundled into Amstrad’s Christmas relaunch of the Spectrum +2.
The James Bond 007 Action Pack included two generic shooting gallery games to justify the inclusion of the Magnum Light Phaser, though neither are worth remarking on.
In 1990, Domark again resurrected a slice of the Roger Moore era with The Spy Who Loved Me for home computers, which is perhaps notable for having the funkiest remix of the Bond theme ever partially stolen from Run-D.M.C., Rob Base, and DJ E-Z Rock.
The Spy Who Loved Me was a Spy Hunter clone: a top-down, vertically-scrolling vehicle shooter that has a few flourishes to call its own, but overall is pretty similar to Midway’s 1983 classic. The comparison is potentially a little unfair considering how heavily inspired Spy Hunter was by James Bond in the first place – down to the Interceptor’s suspiciously close resemblance to Bond’s iconic white Lotus Espirit – but either way The Spy Who Loved Me was certainly a little derivative.
1990 also saw the arrival of Interplay’s 007 James Bond: The Stealth Affair, a point-and-click adventure for Amiga, Atari-ST, and MS-DOS – which was officially licensed but wasn’t actually a bona fide Bond game at its core. The Stealth Affair had previously been released in Europe as a Bond-adjacent adventure called Operation Stealth, starring CIA agent John Glames. For the North American release, Interplay simply changed Glames to Bond, but left him taking orders from the CIA rather than MI6.
On the topic of Bond games that aren’t quite Bond games, in 1991 THQ’s James Bond Jr. – developed by Eurocom – was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System. A distinct (and worse) Super Nintendo version, developed by Gray Matter, arrived in 1992. If you’re unfamiliar with James Bond Jr, it was a cartoon series that ran for around six months back in the early ’90s focusing on the nephew of James Bond; a man who is canonically and famously an only child, and not an uncle to… anyone.
1992 also saw the release of a completely unofficial adaptation of the Roger Moore film Octopussy, developed by a Bratislava-based studio and released only in Slovakia. Octopussy was the final Bond game for the then-ancient ZX Spectrum and, while the game was totally unlicensed, it’s certainly possible it helped shift a few more systems down in central Europe before it was discontinued that same year.
1992 additionally marked the arrival of the final Bond game from Domark: James Bond: The Duel. It was released on Sega consoles – first for Mega Drive in Europe in late 1992. A North American release on Genesis followed in early 1993, as did a version for the Master System, and a Game Gear version emerged in 1994. It was made by the same internal development team at Domark that made The Spy Who Loved Me, which I didn’t mention before, but was rather ironically known as The Kremlin.
James Bond: The Duel is notable for being an original Bond story – that is, not based on a film or book – that nonetheless features the official Bond of the era. In this instance, it’s the likeness of Timothy Dalton, several years after his final big screen appearance. Dalton was intended to make a third film, but legal issues between MGM and the film’s producers dragged on for too long and the actor hung up his Walther PPK. There’s no denying that James Bond: The Duel remains an indefensibly boring title that captures none of the intrigue or charm of an actual Bond novel or movie name, but the game itself is a passable action platformer – even if it is hilariously seedy that Bond’s means of replenishing his health is rescuing blondes.
In 1995 we got a new Bond in Pierce Brosnan, and a new film with GoldenEye. What we didn’t get, however, was a game. Not initially, anyway; not after the commercial failure of the Virtual Boy saw Nintendo cancel a Bond driving game based around GoldenEye. No, the actual GoldenEye 007 as we all know it wouldn’t come until two years later, but it would change everything.
Developed by legendary UK software house Rare and published by Nintendo itself for the Nintendo 64, 1997’s GoldenEye 007 was lightning in a bottle. With a rookie director Martin Hollis at the helm, GoldenEye was eventually assembled by a small team of around a dozen developers with no meaningful experience building a shooter. In fact, eight members of the team had never even worked on a commercial game before.
To say that there were a variety of factors conspiring against the success of GoldenEye 007 would be an understatement. It wasn’t just a movie tie-in; it was a late movie tie-in. Hell, Brosnan’s second Bond film – Tomorrow Never Dies – was already complete and set to hit cinemas later in 1997. Furthermore, GoldenEye 007 was a first-person shooter, which was a genre that mainstream console gamers had yet to prove they had a real appetite for. FPS games simply had no firm footprint on consoles at that stage.
On top of this, the team was missing deadlines, and began working 100-hour weeks in the lead-up to launch. The multiplayer mode was squeezed in just six months out from release. Expectations for GoldenEye 007 were low. Even esteemed Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto was unconvinced, with a fax to Rare late in development warning of his unease with the amount of close-up killing and suggesting that the team consider having Bond visit his vanquished enemies in hospital at the end of the game to shake hands with them.
Thankfully, the team at Rare opted against this advice, and the result was more than just the greatest Bond game to date; GoldenEye 007 is frequently regarded as amongst the greatest games ever made. It was a smart and layered story-based shooter with an absolutely essential splitscreen component that literally revolutionised the genre.
GoldenEye 007’s multiplayer, which was brimming with characters, weapons, and clever modes, may have come about as almost an afterthought, but it became the template for four-player FPS fun – years before the internet would swoop in and try to crush same-screen shenanigans. Slappers only, anyone?
GoldenEye 007 wasn’t the first FPS to hit consoles, but its immense success gave the genre a whole new trajectory. It even helped pioneer the idea of dual analogue controls, since one control scheme allowed gamers to play using a separate N64 controller in each hand. Following this, using two analogue sticks to control an FPS on console quietly made its way into the original Medal of Honor as an alternate preset, and it was still very contentious by the time it appeared as the default control solution in 2000’s Alien Resurrection. The controversy is quaint in retrospect, considering how surprising an FPS without dual analogue controls would be today.
Ultimately, GoldenEye 007 sold more than eight million units, grossing $250 million dollars on a budget of just $2 million. Globally, it is the third highest-selling N64 game on the console. In the US, it’s the bestselling N64 game ever. It is far and away the single most important game in this list, and we could talk about it for a good deal longer if we didn’t have so many more games still to get to. After a gutbusting development period, Hollis and a few of his team declined an offer to make a sequel to GoldenEye 007 and, regardless of Rare’s plans, EA swooped in and reportedly “dramatically outbid” all comers for the Bond license, anyway. As such, the Bond games moved on without Rare, and so must we.
Following Nintendo’s James Bond 007 in 1998 – a top-down, RPG-style adventure for Game Boy – Bond began a lengthy tenure at EA.
The first game was 1999’s Tomorrow Never Dies. Developed by long-defunct Black Ops Entertainment and published exclusively on the original PlayStation, Tomorrow Never Dies was initially intended to be called Tomorrow Never Dies: The Mission Continues and pick up where the movie left off.
While the final product was extensively reworked to follow the plot of the film instead, it was a very different sort of game to GoldenEye 007. For one, it was an entirely conventional third-person shooter, as opposed to a trendsetting first-person shooter. Two: it had no multiplayer whatsoever.
And three? It wasn’t very good.
EA was able to effect somewhat of a course correction with its next attempt, which was based on The World Is Not Enough. Three separate versions of the game were produced – one for PlayStation and one for N64 in 2000, and a clunky and forgettable Game Boy Color version in 2001.
The World Is Not Enough on PlayStation was again developed by Black Ops Entertainment, which immediately pivoted from its Tomorrow Never Dies approach and built The World Is Not Enough as a first-person shooter. The result was undoubtedly an improvement, but the solid but scrappy PlayStation version again had no multiplayer. The original PlayStation only had two controller ports compared to the N64’s four, and perhaps asking PlayStation owners to wear the additional expense of purchasing a Multitap was too optimistic to ask for.
At any rate, The World Is Not Enough on PS1 paled in comparison to the N64 version which, funnily enough, was built by James Bond Jr. developer Eurocom. The World Is Not Enough on N64 doesn’t carry the same esteem as its predecessor, but it still packed four-player splitscreen multiplayer – this time with optional bots – and was nonetheless an excellent shooter for its time.
2000 also saw the release of 007 Racing, a PlayStation-exclusive action driving game that played out from entirely behind the wheel of a fleet of recognisable Bond vehicles. Developed by Eutechnyx, the developer of PS1 racing games like Total Drivin’ and Max Power Racing, 007 Racing was a good concept for resurrecting the idea of a SpyHunter-inspired, vehicle-based Bond game – but it was impossible to recommend over something like the Driver series, which was the king of 3D action driving at the time. A sequel to 007 Racing was planned but never eventuated.
The turn of the century brought with it exciting new consoles with the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube, and alongside this new hardware came a new era of Bond games – beginning with James Bond 007 in Agent Under Fire.
Agent Under Fire initially began life as the PS2 and PC versions of The World Is Not Enough. However, after development delays – and concern that interest for the film would’ve cooled off too much by the time it was released – The World Is Not Enough for PS2 was rebuilt into a new and original Bond adventure, albeit one that didn’t actually feature Pierce Brosnan as Bond this time around. This should be immediately clear from badly-lit Bond on the box art, which looks as if someone’s tried to take a picture of 007 without using a flash.
Released on PS2 in late 2001, and ported to GameCube and Xbox in 2002, Agent Under Fire was a short but solid Bond shooter – and far better than its fractured development might have suggested it should have been. Developed internally at EA, Agent Under Fire’s mix of first-person blasting and driving missions – which were more robust than one might expect thanks to EA’s Need for Speed experience – was entertainingly slick based on the standards of the era. It even introduced optional, cinematic-inspired flourishes throughout the action called Bond Moments, where keen-eyed players could tackle certain moments throughout the levels with a well-aimed shot or smart decision. Speaking of smart decisions, Agent Under Fire also boasted four-player splitscreen on all consoles, with usable jetpacks, no less.
EA followed Agent Under Fire with James Bond 007: Nightfire in 2002, which added Pierce Brosnan’s likeness back into proceedings, albeit not his voice. The home console versions were led by Eurocom, and the result was a slightly more refined evolution of Agent Under Fire that has the distinction of being the first Bond game with its own original song, and the first time we got to see an Aston Martin turned into a submarine.
In confusing circumstances – especially since Nightfire is typically considered one of the strongest Bond games in the history of the series – Nightfire’s PC port is an entirely different game to Eurocom’s console version, and it’s terrible in contrast. Developed by Gearbox, Nightfire on PC runs on a totally different engine, features no driving levels, and is regularly broken.
Indeed; let’s.
EA subsequently made a risky pivot, and 2003’s James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing arrived as a third-person shooter. In other words, EA had opted to follow up Nightfire, an otherwise well-received first-person shooter, by returning to territory previously soiled by the disappointing Tomorrow Never Dies. The shift to third-person probably represented better value to the EA beancounters – after all, if you’re going to pay for Pierce, you may as well try to put his head on screen as much as possible. But it certainly didn’t represent a sure-fire strategy.
Fortunately, it worked. Everything or Nothing was the best-looking Bond game to date, with a lengthy set of levels, explosive action, and quality driving missions. It also had a stacked cast of voices AND likenesses, featuring not only Bond alumni Brosnan, Judi Dench, and John Cleese, but also Heidi Klum, Shannon Elizabeth, and Richard Kiel as the famous Jaws. EA even got Willem Dafoe on deck to play the villain.
However, while the single-player component of Everything or Nothing was pleasingly strong, the multiplayer wasn’t quite up to the same standard. While Everything or Nothing introduced a fun, but slightly less-polished, co-op mode, the GoldenEye-inspired brand of four-player, FPS deathmatches was cast aside.
Unfortunately, after a robust three-year run, EA fumbled the bag with 2004’s GoldenEye: Rogue Agent for PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and DS, which was a disappointingly bland and cynical attempt to marry mid-2000s edginess with a recognisable brand.
Set in an alternate Bond timeline, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent is an FPS that follows an ex-MI6 agent who, after being ejected from the service for being reckless, recklessly joins forces with a host of Bond villains, including Goldfinger and Scaramanga – most of whom betray him. Lacking in the swagger or spirit of a true Bond game, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent also had the misfortune of being a first-person shooter released in November 2004 – the same month as Halo 2 and Half-Life 2.
For clarity, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent has absolutely nothing to do with the 1995 film or the N64 classic. It’s just called GoldenEye because the main character has… a golden eye.
Despite ending with a clear sequel tease, that was the end of the road for the GoldenEye: Rogue Agent experiment, and EA’s final Bond game in 2005 was a return to how things were before – and in more ways that one. That is, not only was it a third-person shooter like Everything or Nothing; EA turned the clock way back to 1963 for an adaptation of the Sean Connery classic From Russia With Love – starring Connery himself, no less, in his video game debut.
Developed for PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and the PSP, From Russia With Love was perhaps a little shallow overall, but its ’60s setting oozed charm and it was a significant step up from GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.
Unfortunately, the fun was just about to come to a dead end.
In May 2006 it was announced that Activision had acquired the Bond video game license. After a pair of spin-offs and half-a-dozen mainline entries, the EA cadence of yearly Bond games fans had enjoyed was suddenly over.
Unfortunately, things haven’t been quite the same ever since. In 2008 Activision released Quantum of Solace on a host of platforms, including PS2, Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and even DS. It was fine enough, but Daniel Craig’s video game debut was otherwise pretty unremarkable, even by contemporaneous standards.
Things did improve a little in 2010, with the release of two separate games: Blood Stone, developed by Bizarre Creations for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, and a remake of GoldenEye 007 for Wii by Eurocom. Both games also had a DS version built by n-Space.
Blood Stone, an original Bond adventure featuring the voices and likenesses of Daniel Craig and Judi Dench, was a third-person shooter with a variety of driving sequences – the latter being a natural fit for the studio behind the Project Gotham Racing series. It was a well-produced action game, but it just wasn’t a long or revolutionary one.
GoldenEye 007 on Wii fared better. Replacing Pierce Brosnan with Daniel Craig and updating the story made for a pretty… iffy reimagining of the source material, but it gathered a good deal of praise for being one of the better first-person shooters for the Wii. For Bond fans without a Wii, GoldenEye 007 was ported to PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2011.
But then, in 2012, we got 007 Legends.
007 Legends, for PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and Wii U, was the last Bond game published by Activision. Unfortunately, it was also the last ever game made by regular Bond developer Eurocom, which was shut down less than two months after the game’s release, after 25 years of operation.
Released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the film franchise, 007 Legends had grand plans to celebrate the entire series, and its single player campaign was built to contain missions from films featuring all six different Bond actors. That is, Goldfinger for Sean Connery, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service for George Lazenby, Moonraker for Roger Moore, Licence to Kill for Timothy Dalton, Die Another Day for Pierce Brosnan, and Skyfall for Daniel Craig. However, like the GoldenEye 007 remake, it simply used Daniel Craig’s likeness in place of all the previous actors.
Unfortunately the end result was a tepid Call of Duty clone that did very little to capture the spirit of Bond, and even less to translate what fans love about these films.
007 Legends doesn’t just misunderstand Bond; it gets him totally wrong. Hell, he even completely flubs his most famous line, “Bond. James Bond.”
Mowing down mooks with a mounted minigun may be pretty typical shooter stuff, but it isn’t what James Bond is about. He’s a spy, not a super soldier. There are parts of 007 Legends you can play by keeping a low profile, but they mainly boil down to slinking around slapping blokes on the arse so firmly they die.
All Activision Bond games were suddenly pulled from Steam and the publisher’s own web store in January 2013. The move, which happened less than three months after the release of 007 Legends, came completely unannounced and without explanation. Since Activision originally announced its deal with MGM was supposed to last until 2014, the premature termination of the license led to speculation that things had soured significantly.
The spirit of Call of Duty killing James Bond was deeply ironic considering it’s been suggested that the James Bond game series very nearly prevented the Call of Duty series from ever happening in the first place. That could have happened if EA had partnered with Call of Duty creators Vince Zampella and Jason West, who had pitched for the PC port of Nightfire back in the early 2000s. As it turned out, EA went with Gearbox, and Zampella and West accepted a deal from Activision and founded Infinity Ward.
At any rate, the funk of 007 Legends has sadly hovered for some time, and there have been no new Bond games for over a decade. He didn’t quite disappear completely, though. 10 classic Bond cars, complete with gadgets, made their way to Forza Horizon 4 in 2018, and two Bond Aston Martins hit Rocket League in 2021. In 2023 the original GoldenEye 007 fought its way out of licensing purgatory and onto Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. In 2024 a confidential sizzle reel concerning a past pitch to make a LEGO James Bond game even leaked onto the internet; the idea looked and sounded incredible, but it obviously never made it into production.
Happily, Bond’s long hiatus is just about over thanks to the imminent arrival of IO Interactive’s 007 First Light in May. A modern and original origin story for Bond, which appears to be a more explosive riff on the sort of gameplay IO has been refining within its Hitman series for the past two decades, First Light features Irish actor Patrick Gibson as Bond, with Lenny Kravitz aboard playing the villain.
For more deep dives into the histories of long-running licensed video game franchises, you can check out IGN’s look back at the terrifying (and sometimes terrible) history of Alien games, and embark with us on a crusade through the history of Indiana Jones games.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.
feedzy_import_tag feedzy_import_tag
About the Author
