Activision's Treyarch Working On Bond License

According to a new job posting displayed on Activision's official website, it's been revealed that the company's Treyarch development studio (Spider-Man 2, Call Of Duty: Big Red One) is working on the publisher's first James Bond game. Activision announced in May that it was taking over the Bond license from EA, and has the rights to make games based on all of the James Bond movies, as well as non-movie based games, through 2014, a notable deal for the publisher, and it has now entrusted development to the LA-based studio. Reports earlier in 2006 from unofficial Bond fan site CommanderBond indicated that Casino Royale, EA's title based on the forthcoming relaunch of the Bond franchise starring Daniel Craig, had been cancelled earlier in 2006, before the license changed hands. Treyarch, which was founded in 1996 and has released over 20 titles, also including Ultimate Spider-Man, Minority Report and Spider-Man: The Movie, will have only recently begun working on the franchise, following its May acquisition by Activision. Therefore, the likelihood of any kind of Activision-published Casino Royale-themed game, to be timed with the movie's November 2006 release date, is extremely small. It seems more likely that the lead next-gen SKUs of Activision's first Bond game, which could in theory an original Daniel Craig-fronted title, a legacy Bond adventure, or a game based on the next Bond movie, will debut later next year at the earliest. The company has not confirmed target platforms, but Treyarch bills itself on its homepage as "focusing on quality next generation games for the Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360".