Veteran publisher System 3 is celebrating 43 years in the business today and has announced that it intends to release a James Pond collection on modern systems.
The James Pond Legacy: The Pond Is Not Enough will be "a celebration of one of gaming’s most enduring and beloved characters" and will include "faithfully emulated versions of the original Sega, SNES and Amiga titles, preserving their classic gameplay exactly as players remember them."
While the full list of included games isn't mentioned, we'd imagine it will include:
- James Pond: Underwater Agent (1990)
- James Pond 2: Codename Robocod (1991)
- James Pond 3: Operation Starfish (1993)
- The Aquatic Games Starring James Pond and the Aquabats (1992)
We'd imagine it's highly unlikely that the 2011 smartphone title James Pond in the Deathly Shallows will be included.
System 3 has revealed the cover artwork for the game, which, if we were being particularly unkind, looks like it was generated using AI – something the publisher has been guilty of in the past.
The Pond Is Not Enough is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox and Nintendo Switch 2, and "marks the next step in the continuing James Pond legacy," says System 3.
This isn't the only James Pond project in the works, as rival company Gameware Europe is working on James Pond: Rogue AI, a project that Pond creator Chris Sorrell isn't particularly fond of.
Speaking exclusively to Time Extension earlier this year, Sorrell lamented the fact that the ownership of Pond is shared between Gameware and System 3. "Like the whole situation couldn't be any sadder," Sorrell said. "That there are two companies fighting over these tepid scraps just beggars belief!"