"The World Is Not Enough" was developed by Eurocom and published by Electronic Arts, which had formed a partnership with MGM in late 1998 to produce games based on MGM's intellectual properties. At the time, Eurocom had started development on a "very scalable" first-person 3D engine intended for sixth generation platforms like the GameCube. After Electronic Arts acquired the "James Bond" game licence, Eurocom showed them their engine and soon both companies started working together to produce the next Bond-licensed game. This happened when Eurocom was still working on the Nintendo 64 version of "Mortal Kombat 4".