There was a time when a secret agent didn’t necessarily need a tuxedo, a fancy sports car or an arsenal of high-tech gadgets. Sometimes, apparently, all that was required was a pair of flippers and a suitably British sense of humor. James Pond became one of the more recognisable platforming characters of the Amiga and home computer era, and System 3 Software is now bringing his adventures together in James Pond Legacy: The Pond Is Not Enough. Rather than reinventing the original games, this collection is primarily concerned with preserving them, offering multiple versions of four classic titles alongside a new presentation layer designed to put the whole series into context. After getting some hands-on time with an early PC build at Gamescom, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic that this could be a worthwhile trip back to the Pondverse.
What we know
James Pond Legacy: The Pond Is Not Enough is a retro game collection bringing together four games from the series: James Pond: Underwater Agent, James Pond 2: Codename RoboCod, James Pond 3: Operation Starfish and the spin-off The Aquatic Games. The collection is built around preservation rather than remaking the games, with versions originating from the Commodore 64, Amiga 500, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Super Nintendo included where available. In total, the collection contains twelve versions of the four games, giving players considerably more than a single emulated version of each release.
The first three games follow James Pond, an underwater agent working for the F.I.5.H. organisation against the villainous Dr. Maybe and his J.A.W.S. organisation. The adventures range from cleaning up polluted oceans to rescuing Santa’s workforce and travelling to the Moon, where Dr. Maybe has discovered that the lunar surface is apparently made from cheese. The Aquatic Games takes a different approach, putting Pond and his aquatic companions into a series of deliberately silly underwater sporting events rather than traditional platforming missions.
Alongside the original games, the collection adds modern conveniences such as multiple save slots, display options including scanlines and custom bezels, and configurable audio settings. There is also the Pondverse, an interactive hub that connects the four games with character information, biographies, artwork and a timeline covering the history of the franchise. Newly created 3D representations of characters such as the Bovine Bomber are used in this surrounding presentation rather than replacing the original graphics inside the games themselves. The collection is expected to launch in the final week of October 2026, with Nintendo Switch 2 currently announced as the target platform.
The collection’s presentation has also become the subject of an ongoing discussion about the use of generative AI in some of its promotional and presentation artwork. System 3 has clarified that generative AI wasn’t used in the creation of the character artwork, developer Antstream having since been confirmed as the developer behind the collection, which is worth noting given the company’s existing focus on preserving and making classic games playable. Whatever conclusions players draw about the artwork, however, the important distinction is that the original games themselves remain the centrepiece of the collection.
What we saw
This preview is based on an early build of James Pond Legacy: The Pond Is Not Enough, which we got to play during Gamescom after meeting with System 3’s Mark Cale. Although the finished collection is being released for Nintendo Switch 2, the version demonstrated during our meeting was running on a Steam Deck. This gave us the opportunity to spend some hands-on time with the games and, more importantly, see how the different versions and presentation options come together as a single collection.
What we thought
The biggest appeal of James Pond Legacy is arguably also the simplest one: these are games that deserve to be playable again. The first three James Pond titles and The Aquatic Games represent a very particular period of game development, when developers were squeezing remarkably inventive platformers and arcade experiences out of hardware that now seems impossibly limited. They are silly, colorful and unapologetically rooted in their era, but that is precisely what makes them interesting today. The absurd premises certainly have charm, from underwater espionage and a robotic suit to a lunar cheese-mining operation, while The Aquatic Games provides a welcome change of pace with its collection of bizarre sporting events. The humor may not land quite as consistently for a modern audience, but there is still personality here that makes these games worth revisiting.
Having multiple versions of each game is particularly appealing for anyone who remembers playing them originally. Rather than simply presenting one definitive version and calling it a day, the collection allows players to explore how the games differed across the C64, Amiga, Mega Drive/Genesis and SNES. That is excellent fan service, but it also gives longtime players an opportunity to discover versions they may never have experienced themselves. The various display and audio options should make the games easier to enjoy on modern screens without fundamentally altering what made the originals distinctive. It is the sort of preservation approach that makes more sense than attempting to modernise these games beyond recognition.
The hands-on experience also suggested that the basic act of playing James Pond remains surprisingly enjoyable. The controls felt responsive, making movement and platforming considerably more comfortable than the old home-computer versions could feel when played with the microswitch joysticks of the period. That doesn’t magically turn the games into modern platformers, and some of the design quirks that come with early-’90s platform games remain intact, but the responsiveness helps bridge the gap between retro design and modern hardware. It will be interesting to see how consistent that experience remains across all twelve versions, particularly given the differences between the original platforms.
Audio is another area where the collection has an important advantage. The James Pond games featured some of the more memorable music of their era, and the tunes remain an important part of their identity. The music has that distinctive combination of catchy melodies and unmistakable period-specific sound that can immediately transport longtime players back to the machines on which they first encountered the series. The collection’s audio options should make it easier to appreciate those differences between versions rather than treating the soundtrack as an afterthought. Combined with the original pixel art, the music does more to sell the nostalgia than any modern 3D presentation ever could.
There is certainly a conversation to be had about the new artwork and the decisions surrounding the Pondverse, particularly given the controversy that has followed the collection’s promotional material. It would be a shame, though, if that discussion completely overshadowed what is actually being preserved here. Antstream’s involvement is reassuring given its experience with retro game preservation, while the decision to leave the original games themselves intact is arguably more important than whether players like the new menu artwork. Based on this PC build, James Pond Legacy looks less like an attempt to reinvent a forgotten franchise and more like an attempt to give its existing games a convenient new home. For fans of James Pond, especially those who remember the series from the Amiga and other home computers, the prospect of finally having twelve versions of four games together could prove considerably more interesting than the surrounding controversy suggests – and we hope it also comes to additional systems so James Pond gets the audience he deserves.