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It's fair to say 007 First Light has been a tremendous success; IO Interactive's James Bond origin adventure is one of the year's best-rated games, and its early sales have been very healthy indeed.
The timing of the game is interesting, though, as during its development, rights to the 007 IP changed hands to Amazon. It seems the company is keen to take over any future titles from a publishing perspective.
In an interview with Polygon, GM of gaming at Amazon Jeff Gattis explains how things are likely to play out now the company is in control of the James Bond universe.
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He says that, while Amazon "didn't have the full rights to this First Light James Bond game", any sequels will be "done by MGM and, theoretically, by Amazon Game Studios."
It's not suggested that IO Interactive will be replaced as developer, just that publishing duties will move over to Amazon. IO self-published 007 First Light.
"We did not [make First Light]," Gattis says. We do have a stake in it because we now own the IP, but that IP acquisition happened after the First Light IO deal was already done."
The hope is that Amazon won't interfere with what IO Interactive wants to do next with its vision of James Bond.
First Light starts a whole new continuity for the character and it does so extremely well. I imagine the team at IO already knows how it wants to build on that storyline and where it wants to take players in future titles.
The developer will no doubt be having conversations with Amazon about their relationship going forward and plans for follow-up games, and it can enter those meetings with a lot of confidence, given how integral it is to the success of First Light.
Fingers crossed Amazon doesn't ruin anything, eh? Personally, I don't see how this will be a problem, as long as Amazon is smart enough to recognise what IO is building and leave it to do its thing.