James Bond is one of the most popular fictional characters ever created, but developer IO Interactive knows it needs a version of the MI6 agent that stands out for his big return to video games in 007 First Light. Licensing the franchise comes with certain expectations, especially because a Bond game hasn't been released since 2012's critically panned 007 Legends. Bond is a thoroughly established character, but that hasn't stopped IOI from reconfiguring the narrative and his arsenal to better suit 007 First Light's needs.
Screen Rant was invited to attend a virtual, hands-off demonstration of 007 First Light's gameplay, which highlighted the basics and showed off a couple of early action set pieces. This was followed by a brief presentation and Q&A with IOI lead game designer Andreas Krogh, in which the design pillars of 007 First Light were discussed. The game serving as an origin story for this iteration of Bond is well known, but it's now clear just how much 007 First Light's Bond stands out from his peers in the Eon Productions films.
007 First Light's James Bond Is Still In Training
He Answers To More People Than Just M
James Bond in a truck in 007 First Light.
Most Bond films feature an experienced and reliable – if often renegade – version of James Bond, an agent that can be relied upon for the most top-secret, consequential missions undertaken by MI6, the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service. Perhaps the only outlier is Casino Royale's Bond, who is fresh off earning his license to kill, but is still given quite a long leash, reporting only to M, head of MI6.
007 First Light's Bond is on the bottom rung of the agency's ladder. The youngest Bond in franchise history was shown in the presentation to be a tag-along for more senior 00 agents, disguised as their chauffeur for an infiltration of an ostentatious Slovakian hotel. In what is clearly one of the game's earliest missions, MI6 is searching for 009, who seems to have gone rogue.
As befits the young Bond's station, he's told to stay with the car and monitor the parking lot. As befits the young Bond's character, he defies those orders to follow serendipitous leads. Without the proper credentials to enter the event, Bond resorts to trickery, turning on a sprinkler and lighting a wheelbarrow of dried garden clippings on fire to distract guards so he can reach a window to climb through unnoticed. "Parking lot is clear," he radios to his fellow agents from a back-of-house staff area, well out of sight of the parking lot.
Openly defying orders is par for the 007 course. It feels especially heinous in 007 First Light, where any major slip-up might result in far worse punishment than a slap on the wrist from M. Bond was on a short leash, given a specific role in a mission involving multiple 00s. Still, he's managed to take off his own collar.
What follows is not only expected of a Bond story, but what's expected from IOI. We get a glimpse of 007's gamified instincts, powered by analysis from his Omega Q Watch, resulting in First Light's version of Assassin's Creed's Eagle Vision or The Witcher 3's Witcher Senses. Icons appear to let you know where productive leads might be found, giving you a fairly open-ended section roughly analogous to a level in one of IO Interactive's more recent Hitman games.
This so-called core gameplay is contrasted with IOI's "guided gameplay" segments, like the car chase and airstrip shootout that follow the hotel infiltration. These segments – often 007 First Light's action set pieces – have a tighter focus, with no time to casually explore. Exploration and experimentation are clearly a focus of 007 First Light, though, and the Q Watch is only the tip of the iceberg.
Gadgets Take Center Stage In 007 First Light
Q Branch Is Put Through Its Paces
In discussing 007 First Light's game design, Krogh made an astute observation: gadgets are a quintessential element of the James Bond franchise, yet most of the tech concocted by Q in the films is used just once at the most opportune time. This will not be the case in 007 First Light; gadgets are an integral part of the moment-to-moment gameplay.
The Q Watch appears to be a way to make the HUD halfway diegetic, but classic espionage fiction gadgets are at your disposal. In the gameplay demo, a dart is used to render a guard delirious, allowing Bond to slip past unnoticed. A laser appears to, among other uses, stun targeted enemies, and there's some form of hacking in 007 First Light, letting you override security cameras.
These all have their uses in the game's open-ended sections, giving you the tools to navigate puzzle-box-like segments that clearly benefit from IOI's Hitman legacy. I did, however, register the absence of car gadgets in the gameplay demo, though this may be a result of narrative constraints. The car chase involved the classic, orange Aston Martin from 007 First Light's reveal trailer, which Bond had hotwired outside the aforementioned hotel.
Hopping in the said Aston Martin's passenger seat right before Bond takes off in pursuit of 009 is a woman who works for the Directorate General for External Security, which is also after the rogue agent. The DGSE (from the French Direction générale de la Sécurité extérieure) is essentially France's MI6-equivalent intelligence agency. Her identity remains unclear as the two pursue 009 through the Slovakian countryside to an airstrip filled with faceless goons.
In such circumstances, which IOI would catalog as "guided gameplay," Bond's myriad gadgets appear to take a backseat to more straightforward technology: firearms. In pursuit of the plane 009 is escaping on, 007 guns down dozens of henchmen (and literally throws his gun at a couple), which I would have thought would violate James Bond franchise steward MGM's one request, to not make the game's main character "a killing machine."
Think of the numerous underwater deaths by harpoon in Thunderball, or the lengthy battle at the eponymous satellite's control facility in GoldenEye. Bond is a killing machine, that's why he's a 00. So, while the freedom-of-choice-loving side of me wishes I could sneak through the airstrip and board the fleeing plane unnoticed, I'm still excited to tear through that airstrip like Bond does the embassy in Madagascar near the beginning of Casino Royale.
It's clear from this rather brief gameplay demonstration that 007 First Light takes its James Bond heritage seriously. But it doesn't feel rote, thanks to its inexperienced Bond and potentially exhaustive gadgetry in social stealth situations. It's impossible to judge its quality without actually playing it, but 007 First Light looks like an exceptionally compelling blend of James Bond franchise touchstones and IO Interactive's gameplay expertise.
