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I was a bit surprised yesterday when Amazon Gaming general manager Jeff Gattis said that following the success of 007 First Light, sequels will be "done by MGM and, theoretically, by Amazon Game Studios," suggesting that First Light developer IO Interactive may find itself relieved of its Bond burden. The game is pretty good, and it's a decent-sized hit too—so why burn any bridges, especially so soon after launch?
In a statement provided to PC Gamer, though, an Amazon spokesperson said that's not really the case at all—although the company remains non-committal about what the future holds.
"Amazon MGM holds the rights to any future James Bond videogames but it’s still too early to discuss future projects," the rep said. "We have a great relationship with IO Interactive and are proud of what we've accomplished together on 007 First Light. 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."
It's a bit of an odd situation: As the owner of the underlying IP, Amazon has "a stake" in 007 First Light, but IO Interactive self-published the game because its deal to make it was done years prior to Amazon's 2025 acquisition of the Bond franchise.
That's left Amazon in a situation somewhat similar to that of Hasbro and Larian: A hit videogame has turned an aged and greying entertainment series into a hot property, and... now what? Larian's complete disinterest in doing Baldur's Gate 4 simplified the situation for Hasbro in that very limited regard—don't have to worry about dealing with the power behind the throne if they decide to just leave—but IOI has shown no such inclination (unsurprisingly, since 007 First Light has only been out for a week) and now Amazon seems to be moving quickly to set expectations for the future.
Another similarity between Hasbro and Amazon: Neither of them seem to have much idea what they're doing in the videogame space. After years of fumbling the bag, Hasbro announced a big new D&D game with Stig Asmussen's Giant Skull studio, and then pulled the plug on it less than a year later; shortly after that, CEO Chris Cocks bizarrely described the Mass Effect-like Exodus as "effectively D&D in space," which is sure not a comparison I would make.
Amazon, meanwhile, made major layoffs in its games division in 2025, cancelled multiple projects, and even called a halt to New World, its not-unsuccessful MMO, as part of a refocus on its Luna cloud gaming platform.
So why would Amazon suddenly be interested in publishing, and possibly developing, videogames again? For one thing, there's no indication as to what its vision of the future of Bond games will be, so maybe it's looking forward to inflicting more AI slop on the world. It's also quite possible that it hopes to strike a conventional publishing deal with IOI for future 007 games, effectively giving it a bigger slice of the pie while letting the studio continue to do the heavy lifting.
But there's a third factor: convergence. In a separate interview with The Verge, Gattis said "this line between TV and videogames is increasingly coming together," and as a result he thinks that "every major IP is going to have to have a videogame story."
"[007 First Light] is exhibit A of going to Prime Video, seeing the Bond films, playing the videogame, buying merchandise on [Amazon].com," Gattis said, describing a multi-pronged attack I don't find particularly appealing. He also repeated that "I think you can expect [the next Bond game to be] an Amazon Game Studios-published game," and declined to say whether IOI would be involved in making it: "As the dust settles on this one, we’ll start to pop our heads up and figure out, okay, what does [the next Bond game] look like? Who’s the right developer for it? What’s the right storyline? All those things."
So far, IO Interactive hasn't commented on the situation—I've reached out to the studio to ask how it feels about the whole thing, and will update if I receive a reply.
