Espionage in big budget games ( more to explore )

A good lot of the trade has been covered in games, the immediate engaging parts. But I think the full tension of covert ops and Intelligence gathering from inception to mission management and execution could be covered a little more deeper in games in the future. Stealth games could be 'skyrim-level massive', planning out events like GTA heists. )

Maybe Alpha Protocol could be refreshed, or Guerrilla Cambridge could do a more original spy I.P. than 24 the game. Could be a sandbox title. Could be another sci-fi mmo, but it'd could bring interesting variety if you got to play out events from other perspectives along with Bournes. What if your avatar is the guy responsible for the creation of such 'bourne' types.

We've chased and took down the shadow broker as Liara in Mass Effect but what if such a role were a win-state or master class in an MMO. Imagine that. You know so much shit about the world you can move to some offshore isle mansion and sell secrets all day if you wanted to. Imagine doing that in a popular 'online' spy game. Your inbox would be crowded out.

Or if you wanted you could make a character's winstate rise to be the equivalent of the CIA director. Lotta paperwork and dull cocktail parties though.

What would it feel like to go beyond play 3rd person in the field, but also switch back to command and be in the control room as a director or analyst digging up leads and data while the game clock is running against your human efforts to stop a cataclysmic event. or two. or three.

or construct an op GTAV or Rainbow Six style, cross your fingers and hope it works.

Or deal with the consequences when it doesn't.

Kinda reminds me of the informant that Carrie lost in season 1 of Homeland. ( now how bout that. it could be another game with the emotion of training and leveling an asset only to lose them through perma-death in a failed op )

Maybe it could be an online title of independent ( to the highest bidder) small agencies, each one controlled by diff players or clans, racing against each other to complete an objective, capture a target on behalf of different institutions or simply for the value of intel, where each doesnt know what tricks the other group has up their sleeve.

I guess my point is there's still a lot of potential gameplay drama, color, new mechanics, that could be realized in multiplayer and SP.

Metal Gear Solid V might be what you are looking for. It will be open world and as a part of that franchise, espionage is to be expected.

@platinumking320: Or if you wanted you could make a character's winstate rise to be the equivalent of the CIA director. Lotta paperwork and dull cocktail parties though.

I hope when they make that game, they hire Ron Pearlman to do voiceover in the opening. "Paperwork... Paperwork never changes...", and so on.

screw that, just add Splitscreen co-op and I'm cool

This would work great in a Shadowrun MMO. Guild Wars 2 had a really interesting "representing" system that allowed players to accrue fame for the guild they represented (and you could be a part of more than one guild, but could only represent one at a time) by accomplishing things in game, including specific quests appointed by your guild officers. The guild leaders could invest this fame into researching permanent guild bonuses and such. So a lot of times you might have guys that weren't really involved in your guild but freelancing for your guild to help it earn status in exchange for access to your guild facilities or some other bonus.

Take that into a Shadowrun universe where guilds become corporations, these freelance players essentially become shadowrunners and with "guild housing" and "guild missions" you could essentially hire shadowrunners to run these missions against other guilds, offering them some kind of recompense for their efforts (maybe your guild has researched a certain level of implant tech and this player wants one) and gaining benefit for your corporation.

@BranKetra: Oh ther'll definitely be some interesting additions to Phantom Pain. I guess to me this comes from watching Bourne, Burn Notice, The Blacklist, and Homeland, and thinking if more of this surveilance, and outside the mission drama could be systemized in-game too.

One thing that some spy games definitely could improve is their TPS shooting mechanics though.