Cypher 007 is James Bond via Metal Gear Solid – and the best Bond game in decades
Everybody is waiting on Hitman developer IO Interactive’s take on fiction’s greatest gentleman spy – but James Bond is already beginning his gaming comeback without them in new Apple Arcade title Cypher 007.
Cypher 007, like a lot of Apple Arcade releases, is easily missed. It was relatively quietly announced with a trailer at an Apple event, and then released as part of Apple’s gaming subscription just a few weeks later. But I’m here to tell you: it’s brilliant. And it may even contain a few clues about what we might expect from IO Interactive’s take on the franchise in a few years’ time.
Cypher 007 offers a pretty simple pitch: a stealth game with a zoomed-out semi-isometric viewpoint that takes inspiration from classics of the genre like the original Metal Gear Solid. At the same time, it’s also a Bond greatest hits package of sorts – while also offering an original story.