It seems like Gameware Europe, the current rights holders of the James Pond series, is once again trying to reboot the 1990s platforming series, but there are some who believe its use of AI to market the game will potentially "alienate" old fans of the series.
The new game, which is ironically titled James Pond: Rogue AI was brought to our attention via Tim Lince on BlueSky yesterday and was announced on Gameware Europe's YouTube and Facebook pages on July 10th. It is scheduled to release in Q4 2025 across PC, iOS, and Android, and reportedly won't feature the involvement of Chris Sorrell, the lead designer on the original three James Pond games.
Judging from the limited footage we've seen of it so far, the new game appears to feature stretching and flying mechanics similar to the ones found in the second title in the series, James Pond: Codename Robocod, with other new additions thrown in such as a bumper car (which the orange mudskipper can jump in to travel around the level).
However, amidst the small wave of excitement for a new entry, there have also been some concerns about the way in which the game has been marketed online, with some commenters on Facebook complaining about Gameware Europe's use of "AI Slop" — a term often used for low-effort AI-generated media — in order to promote the game.
Looking at the company's website and its Facebook page, it is filled with AI-generated animations, which often have little or nothing to do with the original games, which has led some to worry that the new title itself might feature AI-generated content. This is something that Gameware Europe has denied on its Facebook page, stating definitively that there will be "no AI involved in making this game!"
While nowhere near as beloved as platforming mascots like Sonic or Mario, the James Bond parody character James Pond will conjure fond memories for those of you who grew up playing platformers on the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, and Sega Mega Drive / Genesis. The character was the hero of a trilogy of games released throughout the early 90s, by the British developer, with the second game, in particular, Codename Robocod having received unanimous praise from various outlets at the time.
Since then, however, the years have not been kind to the platforming hero, with the series mostly being confined to lacklustre ports of the older games to newer platforms, and HPN Associates' disappointing 2011 entry James Pond in the Deathly Shallows for iOS.
The latter was a game that proved so bad, in fact, that it received the frightfully low score of just 1 out of 10 from the website Destructoid who accused it of being a "useless waste of time" that "awkwardly glued the James Pond name to it on order to con fans".
This was later followed by a more legitimate attempt from Gameware Europe and the original designer Chris Sorrell to go the Kickstarter route to give fans a proper follow-up to the series. But this Kickstarter ultimately failed, raising just £16,000 of its £100,000 goal.
In addition to Rogue AI, Gameware Europe has stated that there will "other surprises" for James Pond fans the year, which is presumably a reference to the separate browser game James Pond A Bit of A Stretch currently listed on the publisher's website. This is another game that Gameware Europe has bafflingly chosen to promote with AI-generated content that has seemingly has no connection to the game it is intended to promote.