“You can’t kill my dreams. But my dreams can kill you.”

Strip away the iconic music, the modernized movie scenes, and all the gimmicky spy-tech minigames, and 007 Legends is just another in a long line of third-rate Call of Duty 4 knockoffs. Hastily tossed together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bond’s first movie appearance (Dr. No), the game sends Daniel Craig’s likeness through five missions designed around one movie from each actor to play the character. In theory, throwing the new Bond in amongst a hodgepodge of classic villains and femme fatales (Oddjob, Goldfinger, Pussy Galore, Jaws) is a great way to pay homage to the long-running series, but in practice the game is so senselessly bland that the success or failure of its contrived frame story makes little difference. From its nondescript level design, to its vanilla objectives, to its endless waves of bullet sponge enemies, to its undercooked gunplay, to its chintzy implementation of gadgets, to its tacked-on addition of rudimentary stealth mechanics, to its identical quick-time fisticuffs boss fights, to its inane driving sequences, everything about 007 Legends makes it feel like an unimaginative and unrefined afterthought, and so the entire project must be viewed as a deceptive cash grab. It’s almost annoying when the final, Moonraker-based level actually provides some thrills instead of being a joyless slog like the rest of the game. Conceived to celebrate the legacy of James Bond in cinema, 007 Legends sadly manages to not only erase any sense of the films’ personality, but to tarnish the modestly respectable legacy the character enjoys in the gaming world. It’s almost enough to make one question their fondness for the older games in the series, several of which (The World Is Not Enough, Nightfire, GoldenEye 007: Reloaded) were developed by the same studio that put together this parody. Here’s to hoping the upcoming 007 First Light (2026) sets the Bond game brand back on steady footing after a fourteen year hiatus.