IO’s 007 Trilogy, Imagine NES Castlevania as FPS

IO hopes to do a whole Bond trilogy

IO Interactive – who just concluded the World of Assassination trilogy with Hitman 3 – is working on a James Bond game, and they seem to be aiming to make another epic trilogy.

The Danish studio certainly has creative freedom: They are making their own James Bond, rather than basing their 007 on any existing portrayal. Studio director Hakan Abrak told Danish media that he ”could easily imagine that a trilogy could come out of it,” when the project was announced in November.

47 to 007 IO has spent the last two decades making increasingly intricate stealth action games about a sharply dressed killer dispatching criminals, corrupt business moguls and overly ambitious politicians, so the studio is certainly uniquely well-equipped to handle Bond.

Her Majesty's Secret Service: The first game follows Bond early in his career while he is earning his 00s. According to Abrak, IO had a hard time convincing the right holders to give them a shot, since they were unimpressed with earlier game adaptations – and especially their tendency to feature “violence for the sake of violence.”. Fingers crossed for jokes drier than Martini!

What was the first Castlevania game Ayami Kojima worked on?

a) Lament of Innocence
b) Symphony of the Night
c) Rondo of Blood
d) Judgement

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today's issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

A very German Easter for The Settlers

Blue Byte developed a Settlers IV expansion exclusively for the German market called Die Neue Welt, which featured Easter eggs for long-time fans.

Many of the decorative buildings introduced by the expansion were based on notable structures from the earlier Settlers games. For example, one of the Roman monuments portrayed a Knight based on the box art for the first Settlers game.

There were also some nods to Blue Byte’s own games: To activate cheats, you had to type !incubation2 into the chat box, which is a reference to their 1997 game Incubation.

Join our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today's fact.

All is permitted in love and Johto 

The Johto Celebration event begins in Pokémon Go today, and will last until January 31st. Open your heart to love with the upcoming Valentine-themed Pokémon Masters EX event.

Reddit user Volman99 just completed every Pokémon game without using any Pokémon twice. Finding a way to do this has taken over two and a half years, and Volman99 admits to underestimating the challenge.

Pokémon GO

• Johto Celebration Event
  • Runs: January 24th to 31st
  • Increased spawn rate for Johto Pokémon
  • Unique Johto-themed challenges
  • Entei returns to Raid Battles during event
• Timed Research until February 7th rewarding Ho-Oh with Earthquake

Pokémon Masters EX

• Valentine's Day event
  • Runs: January 29th to February 19th
  • Sync pairs Serena & Whimsicott and Dawn & Alcremie
• New update with various game fixes
• Eggcelerator Pass owners compensated 300 Gems

Pokémon Café Mix

• Team issues for Android players alter events
  • Chansey event extended until February 23rd
  • Torterra repeat event between February 3rd and 10th
  • 3,000 Golden Acorns compensation for players

Not my job to educate kids, says Ninja

Streamer Ninja does not think it’s his responsibility to educate kids about racism or sexism.

“…it all comes down to parenting. You want to know who your kid is? Listen to him when he’s playing video games when he thinks you’re not,” Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins told New York Times. He believes most racism and sexism in online games amount to little more than trolling.

Not responsible: “Is it my job to have this conversation with this kid?,” he asks. “No, because the first thing that’s going on in my head is, this kid is doing this on purpose to troll me.” Ninja also stands by his general rule of not working with female streamers because it sparks too many rumours.

No one-to-one time: “You know how to make that never happen? You don’t let it happen! That’s what was going through my head,” he explained. “I still stand by not having a lot of alone time with a woman, in general, if you are a married man.” His exception to the rule is “with a big group so it’s not that one-on-one interaction.”

• Italian visual novel Dry Drowning coming to PlayStation 4 and Switch this spring, featuring special collector’s edition
• Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town coming to PlayStation 4 and Switch this spring in both standard and collector’s edition
• Limited Run Games puts Afterparty out for sale on January 29th and you can pre-order PlayStation 4 and Switch versions until February 28

• Star Wars: Battlefront 2 player base grows to 19 million after it was free for a week on Epic Game Store
• Mediatonic teases Fall Guys Season 3.5 highlights including a new level plus over 40 variations of existing ones
• Castlevania: Simon’s Destiny is a Castlevania total conversion for Doom and you can download it for free right now
• Monster Hunter Rise will reward you a “handy item pack” if the retail version of the game detects save game from the demo
• New festival event coming to Animal Crossing: New Horizons in the next update on January 28th

What was the first Castlevania game Ayami Kojima worked on?

ANSWER: Symphony of the Night!

Ayami Kojima may not be the most famous Kojima in gaming, but if you’re a Castlevania fan you probably know her work well. She was responsible for the elegant, gothic Bishonen style the series adopted in Symphony of the Night.

Alucard certainly looks a lot more androgynous and, well, bishie in Symphony of the Night than he did in Castlevania III – and while that might not be everyone’s cup of tea, it certainly made Castlevania stand out at the time. She worked on the box art for spiritual successor Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, so maybe she will be more involved in the series in the future?

Today's issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Simon Priest, and Jamie Davey.