007 Legends is a first-person shooter video game featuring the character of British secret agent James Bond. It was developed by Eurocom and first released by Activision in October 2012 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with Microsoft Windows and Wii U versions releasing later that year. The Wii U release of the game was cancelled in Australia and the game was removed from all digital storefronts in January 2013.
Upon its release, 007 Legends received generally negative reviews from critics, who criticized the choice of missions, bland gameplay, and lack of an overarching story; though its multiplayer mode did attract some praise. It is the fourth and final James Bond game released by Activision and the last game Eurocom developed before the company ceased operations. It is currently the final James Bond video game released, although in 2020, a new Bond game (developed by IO Interactive) was announced to have entered development.
Gameplay
007 Legends is a first-person shooter game that serves as a retelling of key moments in the James Bond franchise. Here the player navigates through a level from the film Moonraker.
Built on the engine used for Eurocom's previous title, 2011's GoldenEye 007: Reloaded,[1]007 Legends shares much of the same gameplay, though there are some notable additions and modifications. The most significant change is the greater focus on stealth-based play, with enemy AI being more suspicious and investigative.[2] Throughout the campaign, players will frequently be presented with situations that require stealth to get past, though often running-and-gunning will also be an option.[3] To complement such stealth scenarios, players will have access to three gadgets from the start of the campaign: the returning smartphone, which has new vision modes[4] and binocular capabilities; a new dart pen that can fire three different types of darts, including distraction, shock, and tranquilizer darts; and a wristwatch that can track enemies, fire a laser, and map nearby enemies and cameras.
Another notable addition is the incorporation of an XP (experience points) progression system.[5] Players can use XP to unlock and/or upgrade gadgets, weapons (and attachments), and Bond's physical abilities.[3] Other notable points include there being at least one vehicle-based level in each of the missions,[6] new weapons,[citation needed] and a new free-form melee function that enables players to control punches with the analogue sticks.[7] As with the MI6 Ops Missions mode from GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, the Challenges mode will present extra missions based on assault, elimination, stealth, and defence-based objectives, with adjustable difficulty. New to this mode will be the option to play special missions for some of the villains and companions from the single player.[1] Players' scores will be uploaded onto online leaderboards.
Multiplayer is supported across all platforms.[3] Four-player split-screen is available for local offline play, while online play will have capacity for up to 12 players in a match.[8] Players' multiplayer experience are indicated by their level, such as Level 50 (00 Agent Grade 0).[9] There is also a 00 Specialization mode, similar to Call of Duty's Prestige system[vague].[9] Character skins and maps from the single player are available to players.[10] Players can also equip gadgets to enhance their abilities, such as the Fast Switch gadget, which halves the time it takes to switch weapons.[11] Scenarios revealed are Conflict, Golden Gun, You Only Live Twice, Escalation, Data Miner, Team Conflict, Icarus, and Black Box.[9]
Plot
The game begins with the opening chase sequence in Skyfall, in which MI6 agent James Bond (likeness of Daniel Craig, voice of Timothy Watson) pursues the mercenary Patrice in Istanbul, only to be accidentally shot and wounded aboard a train by his partner Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris). Plunging into the river below, Bond begins to flash back to several of his previous missions that took place in-between Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. However, with the release of Spectre, the game has been rendered as non-canon.
In Miami, Bond awakens in a hotel room to find Jill Masterson dead from skin suffocation, coated in gold paint. Days later in Switzerland, Bond infiltrates the facility of Auric Goldfinger (Timothy Watson, likeness of Gert Frobe), the man responsible for Masterson's death. He discovers Goldfinger's plan to irradiate the United States Gold Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky in Operation Grand Slam. Bond manages to convince Goldfinger's personal pilot, Pussy Galore (likeness of Honor Blackman, voice of Natasha Little), to inform the CIA, and he and the United States Army manage to thwart Goldfinger's scheme in the nick of time.
In the Swiss Alps, Bond and his lover Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo (likeness of Diana Rigg, voice of Nicola Walker), daughter of Italian Unione Corse boss Marc-Ange Draco, escape via skis after an attack by soldiers of Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Glenn Wrage), a terrorist mastermind residing in his mountaintop lair, Piz Gloria. Bond is injured by a helicopter gunship during the gunfire, and Tracy is in turn captured by Blofeld's men. Sometime later, Bond and Draco lead an aerial attack on Piz Gloria in order to rescue Tracy. They succeed. However, on their honeymoon, Bond and Tracy are attacked by Blofeld and the latter is killed.
Bond finds his CIA agent friend Felix Leiter (Demetri Goritsas) maimed in his house alongside his dead wife. The man responsible is Franz Sanchez (likeness of Robert Davi, voice of Rob David), a Mexican drug lord whom Bond and Leiter had unsuccessfully attempted to take down weeks earlier. On a quest for vengeance, Bond and DEA agent Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell) infiltrate Sanchez's facility inside an old Otomi temple, intent on killing him. A car chase ensues, and Bond kills Sanchez with the lighter given to him by Felix when Bond found him on the floor.
In Iceland, Bond and NSA agent Giacinta "Jinx" Johnson (Madalena Alberto) arrive at a party held by billionaire philanthropist Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), who is believed to be involved in the theft of military satellite components. Jinx spots Zao (Jason Wong), a rogue Korean People's Army operative who killed two of Jinx's colleagues, and believes he may be involved. They learn that Graves plans to weaponize ICARUS, a satellite used to reflect sunlight, in order to destroy South Korean forces on the DMZ, opening the way for a North Korean invasion of the South. Bond and Jinx manage to board Graves' plane after a lengthy car chase with their Aston Martin DBS V12, killing Zao in the process. The ensuing firefight causes the plane to head downwards in a tailspin, but Bond manages to kill Graves and escape with Jinx.
In Brazil, Bond and Holly Goodhead (Jane Perry), a NASA scientist moonlighting as a CIA agent, infiltrate the rocket launch facility of Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale), a billionaire industrialist who has started his own private space exploration program. They quickly learn that Drax, a twisted social Darwinist, intends to wipe out the human race while creating his own new "master race" from personally-selected specimens, spared from the destruction of Earth via biological weapons onboard Drax's personal space station. Bond and Goodhead manage to get on board the station via a shuttlecraft and proceed to destroy it, killing Drax in the process by blowing him out of an airlock.
Back in the present, Bond regains consciousness on the riverbank, injured, but alive. A few days later, he is seen in Shanghai, following Patrice to prevent the assassination of an unknown figure. Bond succeeds, but kicks Patrice off a building to his death before learning of his employer's identity. After finishing his report to M (Judi Dench) via phone, he is informed by Bill Tanner (Rory Kinnear) that another mission awaits him.
Development
Actor Daniel Craig provides Bond's likeness in the game, replacing previous actors in their respective stories.
007 Legends was developed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film franchise.[12][13] The game was released to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the James Bond film series.[10] It incorporates the stories of six Bond films, one film chosen from each Bond actor's series of films, and retells them with an overarching narrative that ties them together, that of the progression of James Bond, from a newly christened agent on through becoming experienced as 007. The player goes through the classic Bond missions in the game playing as the Daniel Craig incarnation of Bond, as along the lines of the 2010 remake of GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo Wii, and the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 port called GoldenEye 007: Reloaded.[13] At the announcement of the game on 18 April 2012, publisher Activision did not comment on which films would be remade in the game, but said that the upcoming Skyfall would serve as the final portion of the game.[14]
The game was first released in North America on 16 October 2012 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Microsoft Windows release followed on 2 November 2012. The Wii U received the final platform release in December 2012.[15] The game is available as physical optical disc media, as well as a digital release download via PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Marketplace on date of release, though it was removed off all other digital stores without warning in January 2013.[16] A released was planned in Australia but later cancelled.[17] and in the United Kingdom on 21 December 2012.[18][19] The single player campaign includes one mission from each of the six actors' eras, being Goldfinger (Sean Connery), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (George Lazenby), Moonraker (Roger Moore), Licence to Kill (Timothy Dalton) and Die Another Day (Pierce Brosnan), with Skyfall (Daniel Craig) released as downloadable content for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC and included on disc for the Wii U version.[20] It remained the final James Bond video game for 8 years until November 2020, when it was announced a new Bond game, developed by IO Interactive, had entered development.[21]
Moonraker was the first mission of the game to be revealed,[22] while the second mission is based on the film On Her Majesty's Secret Service.[23]Goldfinger is the opening mission of the game, while Licence to Kill, and Die Another Day also feature in the story.[9] The only mission that is not on the game disc itself is the "Skyfall" mission, which was released on 20 November 2012 as free downloadable content (DLC), since 007 Legends was released one week before Skyfall was first released in theaters. The Skyfall DLC is available for PlayStation 3, PC and the Xbox 360 and is included on the disc on the Wii U. Bruce Feirstein, who wrote three films and four games in the James Bond universe, wrote the screenplay along with Robin Matthews, who works for Eurocom. The composers from a previous release in the series, GoldenEye 007, returned to do the music score for 007 Legends. Kevin Kiner wrote and composed the soundtrack, while David Arnold wrote his own instrumental arrangement of Goldfinger for the main title sequence.[24][25]
007 Legends received generally unfavorable reviews from critics, according to aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic.[28][29][30][31][33][32][34] Reviewers often commented that the game felt like a missed opportunity, and that it played like a Call of Duty clone. Some reviewers noted that the game had small moments that engaged the player as Bond, but that generally gameplay was bland and uninspired. Commentary on the game's multiplayer was mixed. While most lambasted the online play, some appreciated the inclusion of split-screen multiplayer.
Tristan Ogilvie of IGN accused the game of drowning out the Bond series' iconic moments by shoehorning them into a cheap and poorly made Call of Duty clone, further adding that the gameplay was boring and repetitive and that production had only made a half-hearted attempt to bind the chosen recreation of films together, and that the lack of overarching story offered little incentive to keep playing.[36] Dan Ryckert of Game Informer was similarly critical of the game, describing it as "a mess of a title that's uninspired at best and nearly broken at worst", and while the review applauded the concept of remaking films in video game form, it also attacked the gameplay mechanics as overly-simplistic with the player following on-screen prompts to perform certain actions, which was broken up by "truly awful" stealth gameplay.[35]Eurogamer's Will Porter was critical of its by-the-numbers gameplay and stated "every inch of 007 Legends has been covered in a camo-coloured Call of Duty paint."[26] Gameplay elements often game under critical review. Leif Johnson of GameSpot felt that it was an "unfulfilling slog".[40]
The Globe and Mail questioned the choice of missions in the game, claiming that fans considered them to be among the worst installments in the Bond film franchise, and that the game threw players into the middle of missions with little explanation or context to them, concluding that the game "feels like a low-budget knockoff of [...] Call of Duty".[39]IT News Africa's Frederick Charles Fripp thought that "it could have been a better game if Eurocom focused more on improving the graphics and changing the game dynamic from a fairly linear shooter to something a bit more complex and through-provoking. [sic]" He added that "it does become a bit repetitive after a while, especially if the player does not feel challenged".[38] Will Porter of Eurogamer felt that the heart of the films had been lost. In his review he stated "any personality the movies had is erased by the modern Daniel Craig update."[26]
Some praise was given to the game's split-screen multiplayer modes, with IGN's Tristan Ogilvie pointing out that localized split-screen was a feature that had been frequently overlooked in first-person shooter games, before adding that there was little to separate the multiplayer of 007 Legends from that of the GoldenEye 007 remake.[36] GameSpot's Leif Johnson also praised the split-screen multiplayer, but cited that it was more welcome due to a sparse population for online play.[40] In Nintendo Life's review of the Wii U version, Jon Wahlgren cited that the game's multiplayer was not good enough to entice players away from their favorite online games.[41]
Due to the reception and lowering sales of console games, Eurocom in 4Q/2012 fired 150 people from a total of 200 staff and decided to focus on mobile games.[42] On 4 January 2013, Activision and Steam's online stores pulled the PC versions of Quantum of Solace, Blood Stone and 007 Legends, initially without explanation or warning, but which was later revealed as Activision choosing to cease their license agreement to the franchise early, which required them to take down the games.[43] Similar actions followed shortly on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, also affecting GoldenEye 007: Reloaded.[44]007 Legends was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing in the Writers Guild of America Awards.[45]
