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Everything You Need to Know About James Bond 007: Blood Stone

We get some initial details about Bizarre Creations' next game: an original Daniel Craig-era James Bond story.

July 19, 2010
James Bond Blood Stone
Credit: Bizarre Creations

With the recent resurgence of news stories citing the formal cancellation of "Bond 23" (the next James Bond film, where Daniel Craig would be working with director Sam Mendes), Activision finds itself in a peculiar spot of timing with James Bond 007: Blood Stone. There's no movie to tie-in with, so this is basically the only, "new James Bond experience" for 2010 -- here's hoping that we get something closer to EA's excellent Everything Or Nothing rather than the lackluster Quantum of Solace. Now that Blood Stone has been formally announced this morning, we shot some questions over to producer Nick Davies over at developer Bizarre Creations.

1UP: Because of stuff like the HMV retail leak a while back, there's a lot of confusion about Blood Stone. Is it a driving game with a Bond skin, or is it a mash-up of The Club with PGR, or what. So can you clarify, once and for all, what Blood Stone actually is?

Nick Davies: Blood Stone is an original James Bond action-adventure game starring Daniel Craig, with a new original story written by Bond writer Bruce Feirstein [GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough]. I can understand the confusion to some extent based on a few leaks, however this is the first time we've really had a chance to talk about the game so I hope we can clear all that up from today.

1UP: I realize these are from direct competitors, but I'm curious: did anyone on the Blood Stone team play either Everything Or Nothing or 007 Racing? Any thoughts you can share on either of those?

ND: For me Everything or Nothing is the best Bond game ever made -- nothing comes close to it in terms of showing the variety and essence of Bond, so of course we played that. It was probably the first game we dusted off as soon as we knew we were making Blood Stone. I also jumped straight onto Ebay and picked up most of the old Bond titles; I was actually quite surprised how many quality titles there have been (and how many games you can buy for about £2!), with EoN being my favorite, but Nightfire is also a great game. I have to admit I haven't played 007 Racing; I seem to remember having a blast of it back in the PS1 days, but to be honest I've no idea where my PS1 is these days anyway.

Click the image above to check out all James Bond 007: Blood Stone screens.

1UP: Bizarre's games have traditionally been a bit different than expected. PGR wasn't just about racing -- it was about driving and getting Kudos. The Club wasn't just about shooting -- it was shooting with points and style. Geometry Wars was a shooter where people most remembered trying to survive without shooting at all. Blur is "real" racing with power-ups and combat. What's the main quirk, or rather, the "Bizarre Creations stamp of identity" for Blood Stone?

ND: With PGR, The Club, Geometry Wars and Blur, we had the opportunity to do something different, as they were original IP. For Bond, we want to create a cinematic feel, fitting of a Bond experience, so we've deliberately moved away from scoring systems, and combos, etc. We talked a lot in the early days of development about adding features like this, but we felt it took us away from what we wanted to achieve, which was a complete Bond film experience in a game. However, we've certainly have plenty of nice gameplay features and hooks in there to keep savvy gamers on their toes.

1UP: Can you talk about the conception of Blood Stone? Was it always a Bond title, or was it perhaps a different concept initially that transformed into a Bond game?

ND: Blood Stone, from inception, has always been a Bond title -- it has been built from the ground up in that way and with that specific goal. When Activision initially asked us to work on the project, we knew it was going to be a huge challenge. Quantum of Solace had been criticized for being very much a first-person shooter, so we knew the expectation of the Bond fans would be for us to deliver something that showcased all of the action-variety of a Bond movie, hence us bringing in the hand-to-hand and combat elements, along with the driving sequences. We pitched it as the complete Bond experience, and that's what [we're trying to deliver]. The team knew that just skinning The Club wasn't going to work, as the pace was different, the number and type of moves we had just wasn't suitable for the Bond franchise.

Click the image above to check out all James Bond 007: Blood Stone screens.

1UP: Any specific callbacks to Bizarre's past work within Blood Stone?

ND: Only that we've learnt a lot from previous games that we've managed to bring through into Bond, but this game is a very different departure for us compared to our previous titles. The Club was a quirky title that we'd have loved to have been embraced by everyone and turned into a huge franchise, but I think it ended up being too quirky for its own good. That ended up a bit of a cult title (which I'm sure is what everyone says when their game doesn't sell a lot!), and we don't want to go down that road again. We want to make quality titles that a wide audience of people want to play and enjoy. Working on the Bond franchise gives us the opportunity to really create something with a high production value that appeals to more of a mass market, whilst making sure that it's a polished piece of work that the hardcore can also enjoy.

Orginally published on 1UP.com

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