007 First Light is yet another installment in the pantheon of fantastic licensed games where a studio was able to lend its specific talents well to the property in question. It’s the kind of “what if” game that worked out quite well, making it easy to wonder about other developers and how their talents could be applied to franchises outside of their grasp. Of course, not every skilled studio needs to veer away from making something new and original, but these unexpected detours can be a great exercise.
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As such, here is an unranked list of five teams and five games they’d be suited well for.
5) Doctor Strange (Remedy Entertainment)
Remedy Entertainment is one such studio that has done well creating original franchises like Alan Wake, Max Payne, and Control, but it also seems like one of the few developers that could do justice to Doctor Strange. This Marvel sorcerer, as shown in his pair of self-titled Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, bends and shapes the world around him in visually astonishing ways, ones that seem not too far off from how Remedy twists its worlds. Control is the most apt comparison, as the Oldest House bends reality and warps physics in enrapturing ways. Remedy is used to creating universes shaped by weird science, so it seems designed to jump straight into a world shaped by magic.
4) Ape Escape (Team Asobi)
Astro Bot is such a tease. It references dozens of forgotten video game franchises, many of which haven’t seen a new entry in decades. But there is one that stands above the rest: Ape Escape. This chimp-catching staple of the original PlayStation has a whole level dedicated to it and marks the first time players can net apes in a regular platformer since the disappointing Ape Escape 3 in 2005.
A series that had been dead and buried for well over a decade had seen new life in the vertical slice of a level in Astro Bot. This stage combined with Team Asobi’s skill in developing charming platformers and its closeness to PlayStation make a compelling argument for it to be the team to bring this seminal franchise back. There is still juice left in this banana, and Team Asobi is in a prime place to squeeze it out.
3) John Wick (Sloclap)
Sifu is one of the greatest melee-focused action games of all time. Its best-in-class controls and tactile combat give fights a physicality and level of responsiveness that make Sifu a black belt in the genre. With those brawling basics down, Sloclap is one of the few teams that could do a John Wick game justice.
Wick excels at hand-to-hand combat but is also fluent in gun kata, the art of mixing guns with martial arts. It’s a character-specific twist that would push the team to explore new territory and not just make this game a licensed reskin of Sifu. It’s this twist that makes a John Wick game from Sloclap more intriguing. Even though Daredevil, Batman, and The Matrix all would be suitable candidates for Sloclap’s talents, the presence of firearms would allow the developer to show off its skills and grow at the same time. Saber Interactive is currently developing a John Wick game and while it could turn out well, the studio just doesn’t have the expertise in this field that Sloclap has already demonstrated.
2) Sunset Overdrive 2 (Insomniac Games)
Sunset Overdrive is one of the Xbox One’s best games and, sadly, doesn’t get brought up as much now. As noted by Insomniac Games itself, it clearly paved the way for the studio’s Spider-Man games and, even though those three titles are more refined and well-rounded, Sunset Overdrive is still a unique concoction that would be well suited for a sequel.
And because Insomniac spent time honing its craft making Spider-Man games, the team would be able to implement some of those learnings back into Sunset Overdrive, essentially bringing it all full circle. Its blend of kinetic movement, Ratchet & Clank-style weaponry, and punk aesthetics is ripe for further exploration, especially since the first game left plenty of room for improvement. Insomniac knows how to refine its sequels, as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, and Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage were all more streamlined when compared to their predecessors. Given data from the massive leak in 2023, it seems as though Insomniac is going to be working on Marvel games for some time (as well as Ratchet & Clank). And while the studio has demonstrated its ability to excel with its superhero games, it’s hard not to want it to return to one of its more underrated titles.
1) Bully 2 (Rockstar Games)
Rockstar Games used to develop more than Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto. Before all of its teams would crunch on these mega games, it developed racing games, a table tennis game, trivia games, beat-em-ups, and more. And while there are some gems hidden in that catalogue, Bully, its 2006 open-world game centered around a school, is the one that most deserves some sort of comeback.
20 years of tech advancements make for a compelling surface-level argument since Bully came out just before the HD consoles and looks a little dated in some areas. However, more importantly, it would be more interesting to see how a Bully game could culturally adapt to the modern era and how a more mature Rockstar could tackle this premise. Navigating contemporary life as a teenager surviving high school or college student braving a fraternity or sorority would make the studio pivot from its trigger-happy protagonists in Red Dead and GTA that follow a pretty standard open-world template. Multiple reports have spoken of a Bully sequel, but none have seen the light of day, as the teams behind them have been slurped up by the two aforementioned juggernauts. And while games like Agefield High: Rock the School are trying to recapture that magic, it’s still an underserved niche and one that still could use Rockstar’s touch and resources.
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