A new game about James Bond is being created in Sweden, codenamed Project 007. The developers of the Hitman series are responsible for it. They have now landed a big fish: Rodrigo Santoro, who was the mastermind behind the missions of The Division and Avatar. The missions and the open world are considered the best part of the “The Division” games.
This is the news: The Danish video game developer IO Interactive proudly announces:
- Since 2023, they have been looking for a “Mission Director”, and Rodrigo Santoro was the top candidate from the beginning.
- Now, on April 10, 2024, IO Interactive announces that they have hired him (via io.dk)
- His job will be to design the most exciting Bond missions for James Bond.
Santoro has been a key figure for The Division since 2014 (via linkedin)
From architect to level designer in Frankfurt and then to Malmö
What has the man done before?
Santoro was at Massive Entertainment in Malmö, Sweden, from 2014 to February 2024, creating missions for The Division 1, The Division 2, and then working on the Avatar game “Frontiers of Pandora”. In his 9 years and 6 months in Sweden, he climbed the ranks from Senior Level Designer to Lead Level Designer, to Open World Director, and ultimately to World Director.
Particularly the missions of The Division and the open world are regarded as the great strength of The Division games, while the actual gameplay systems and progression have often been criticized. With the mission designer, they seem to have brought in an expert.
If a competitor wants to copy or import something from The Division, it is certainly the missions and the outstanding atmospheric open world, which is still highly appreciated today, and many miss exactly this strength of The Division.
Before his time in Malmö, Santoro was in Frankfurt am Main and worked for Crytek on games like Ryse: Sons of Rome. Previously, he did what he did in video games in real life. He designed spaces as an architect.
What do we know about the new game? Very little. Project 007 was announced 3 years ago and is supposed to tell a new story of Bond, his origin story.
It would be a dream for the developers, as they say, for the Bond project to become its own growing game brand like their Hitman games.
What kind of impact does this have for The Division? That is hard to say. The Division has been quiet for several years; Santoro was last working on the Avatar game, which rather faded away.
While The Division 3 is planned, it is still a few years away. Whether the loss of the experienced level and mission designer will have negative impacts for The Division 3 or if others in the team will offset this will show in a few years.
Ubisoft has announced “The Division 3”, finally what everyone wanted to hear.
