Developer: IO Interactive
Publisher: IO Interactive
Genre: 3rd Person, Action, Shooter, Stealth
Price: $69.99 USD
Release Date: May 27th 2026
Where to buy: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2 (delayed)
Version Reviewed: PC-Steam
Hardware Used: Xbox Elite 2 Controller, Intel Core i7-13700K, Asus Strix RTX 4080 OC
It has been 14 years since the 2012 release of 007 Legends, the final James Bond game from the Activision era, and I was starting to feel it. When I originally heard that the developers of the Hitman series had gotten the “license to kill,” my first thought was that this was the one studio that could get James Bond right. IO has a proven track record in the stealth and the multiple approaches style of gaming shown throughout the Hitman series. With Hitman Absolution, they showcased their ability to create a tighter experience within that universe while diving further into the surreal and generally wacky sides of their villains. I knew they could handle the complexity to create a great set of bond villains and supporting characters while staying grounded (or going completely off the rails) as needed. They also showed us in Mini Ninjas that they could create a game with heart; one of the main drivers behind that game was striving to create something they could “play with their kids.” I was elated as I started to play 007 First Light and found they had exceeded every expectation I had, and then some, as the experience progressed.
As this was advertised as an origin story for a new James Bond, the writers left room to go any direction they wanted. However, for fans of the series this freedom could come with a lot of risk, especially as you consider the divisiveness of things like Disney’s Star War or Zack Snyder’s version of the DC cinematic universe. Luckily what we end up with was a flawlessly executed remix of all the James Bond stories and portrayals in one cohesive game. The fluid insertion of great one-liners from various Bonds at appropriate times throughout the story feels simultaneously familiar and fresh, giving the player the illusion that we had grown up with the playable character, even though he is a brand new interpretation. Sometimes the famous Bond witticisms are delivered by supporting characters, creating a compelling cast instead of a single man delivering those characteristic cheesy lines. I was impressed by how skillfully woven into the gameplay and story most of these are. Signature “Bond moves” in hand to hand combat and cool traversal stunts like releasing the cable latch on a weighted rope and quickly ascending upward to gain the advantage become part of the gameplay loop, allowing you to step into the characters and letting you live your dream of becoming Bond. Avid movie fans will also recognize the use of several iconic set pieces in different ways, like the crane from Casino Royal during a sniper rooftop run or Q’s references to the subway chase and subsequent bombing from Skyfall as you pursue a villain through the London underground.
The use of cinematic techniques is on full show throughout the game. Many of the new areas include a playable “drive up” while characters discuss their roles in the upcoming mission or Bond receives orders over comms, letting the player stay immersed in the scenes beyond what a cutscene could provide. Upon entering a new key location or set piece the camera widens with big swells in the excellent musical score done by The Flight (Alien: Isolation, The Horizon series, and several Assassin’s Creed games) giving the player the chance to fully take in impressive vistas and interior designs while getting familiar with their surroundings.
The theme song “First Light” was composed by Lana Del Ray, who interestingly had a previous Bond theme, “24”, rejected from the 2015 Spectre in favor of Sam Smith’s “Writing’s On the Wall.” The first time I heard First Light’s theme, it was weeks prior to the game’s release. It felt phoned in and full of token Bond theme sounds, but as the intro sequence of the game ended and the credits began to flash in front of me I realized how perfect it felt for that exact use in the context of the game’s visuals. I was more than happy to have my initial reaction to it replaced with appreciation for Del Ray’s work. All of these moments create a familiar yet new experience that coalesce into a nostalgic feeling for the player, the opposite of just having whomever the current Bond actor of the moment replaying other famous actors’ scenes.
While streaming this game to my Twitch viewers, a lot of gameplay comparisons were drawn between it, the Uncharted series, and the most recent Tomb Raider reboots with Bond using a lot of climbing to traverse the environment and infiltrate areas undetected. For me, the gunplay felt more comparable to Remedy’s massively underrated Quantum Break, particularly during fast moving battles with limited ammo alongside the industrial areas and edge of sci-fi environments while trying to figure out both who the main bad guy even was as well as their motivations. The gameplay starts slowly as Bond is a nobody and really has to learn the ropes on the fly. Gameplay mechanics like moving, climbing and stealth are doled out at the usual pace while devs assume it’s everyone’s first game “just in case it is.” You learn just enough to get through the opening sequence and kick off the game’s main story.
After the prologue you are greeted with one of most incredible training montages I have ever seen in a game! “We all love a good training montage” – my wife. She is not wrong, but this excelled at being an incredibly fast and efficient “advanced” tutorial for the player as you go through espionage training. You are introduced to your group of trainees and immediately are shown that you aren’t the best in the world, or even liked at all. The following sequence makes fast and smooth cuts hand to hand combat, driving your first sports car, timed traversal to capture a flag, shooting 3 targets, more advanced fight techniques against more foes, getting a better time with the previous car route knowing how to use the e-brake, a harder flag course, bigger guns with harder targets, and so on. In about 2 minutes of gameplay, it perfectly captures a great cinematic experience while teaching you how to play the game and just how fast a spy must think on their feet to survive. The training ultimately culminates into two freeform capture the flag exercises where you are timed, but not punished for taking as much as you need. You are free to use stealth or confrontation as you see fit, so long as you retrieve the flag. The latter of these two very cleverly teaches you one of the game’s greater mechanics, the ability to use the classic Bond strategy: “blunder then improvise about why you are in a place you shouldn’t be.”
Many of the gameplay abilities like this are limited to an energy/charisma amount that slowly increases throughout the game so you have to use them tactically, making them unique to each player’s approach. As the game progresses you learn quickly how important listening and eavesdropping are to plot your next move. Many of the game’s investigation areas have up to 3 approaches, all feeling very different. Stealth is your baseline approach in every situation, but we are talking about James Bond… and it always ends in a shootout with someone falling from the top of a building while expensive structures cease to exist to prevent getting caught. Unlike Dishonored or even Hitman, you are never really punished for escalations into full blown action; the game even rewards you with a lore-worthy MI6 accountant who hates you for having to revise the budget. The game lets players spend a lot of time walking around areas of importance to explore as much or as little as you would like. MI6 and Q-Branch are particularly nostalgic, and I found it fulfilling just being able to walk around see what everyone is up to as they dig things out of storage and reactivate the 00 program.
Action escalation branches in a few phases, most of which can be descaled. If you are “tresspassing” you can try to lie your way through it if you have the charisma. If you don’t have the required charm, you can’t comply or move into hand to hand combat in an attempt to knock everyone out and move on. If one of the adversaries manages to make a radio call or hit an alarm, armed guards will enter the fray. While they have stun guns you can still contain the situation. If they show up with or call in lethal armed companions you are granted the “license to kill” – then and only then do you unlock guns for use. The game leans hard into hand to hand combat for the majority of the game, with some designated “shooting is the only option” segments. One thing that struck me was the difficulty that is introduced after so much stealth when suddenly having to fight multiple enemies or use a weapon or aiming system I had barely touched. My initial reaction to this was pretty unpleasant but as I neared the end of the game I found that (along some adjustments to sensitivities) I found both the hand to hand and shooting became second nature and it was hard to not feel like I was truly earning the 00 designation as the game intended. Perhaps this was a happy coincidence but maybe it was by design. I choose to believe the latter.
The game also featured enough vehicle segments to bring you to the edge of your seat and make you crave more, without overstaying their welcome. This is an improvement from previous James Bond games where the vehicle segments were ill conceived and poorly paced, turning what could be a fun segment into a tedious city wide hunt for anything that felt like fun while suffering from tacked on poor controls (looking at you Playstation 2 – Nightfire)
Boss “fights” were a real stand out in this game for me, ranging from rather difficult fist fights to hit and evade tactics. The most intriguing were puzzles that reminded me of 24: The Game based on the show of the same name. The most memorable one involved you being tied to a chair about to be shot while still trying to hack a villain’s phone while he was trying to walk away and leave the job to his henchmen. You have to use a variety of provocations and stalling tactics to make him walk back up to you and hit you again so your proximity hack could resume while also watching how much health you had to spare.
The game does a great job of introducing staple characters that are familiar yet new. In the story’s opening you perform some very out of the box thinking that impresses the organization that has co-opted your services and find yourself invited to attempt 00 training by MI6’s new M who has just reopened the program. This M is her own person and while the role is familiar, as the main boss she is different. She is more of a politician who isn’t untouchable and she isn’t well liked by many people so she has a lot to prove. You meet Moneypenny who serves as your in office handler instead of the secretary sitting outside the bosses padded door. You also meet Q the Quartermaster and his massive team in Q-Branch. While you can have a lot of fun with nods and various silliness exploring this area, the new Q feels more of an ally akin- to Batman’s butler or Lucius Fox than previous iterations of the character. He is a huge fan of your out of the box thinking and is excited to let you take most of his gadgets for field testing.
You are also introduced to Greenway, a returned former 00 agent with a haunted past, he is your instructor and he does not like you at all. He introduces you to the team of trainees in the most insulting ways possible to make sure you know he doesn’t like you.
The other trainees are also irritated by your presence and how it affects their progress in the program. You work over several weeks to earn their trust through training and exercises until your bonds with them and team work become your primary source of strength. Eventually a hasty in-field op goes horribly wrong and you and Greenway are left as the only MI6 agents in the fields.
You forge alliances as needed using whatever leverage or skills you have, meeting some pretty incredible characters including one that is portrayed by Lenny Kravitz. The story is appropriately modern, as it serves as a relevant warning about relying too much on tech and the influence of tech giants on governments, as you learn early on that MI6 uses a state of the art AI to help them keep the UK safe from terrorists.
There are some tasteful and consensual adult encounters throughout the game that keep up the storied charm of the character without becoming problematic in the way past portrayals have been. It’s evident that they care to keep the characters much more than set dressing. All characters are complex creations that different people can relate to, with their own backstories and ways they interact with others. While you can guide many of Bond’s minor choices through the game I felt that the ones you couldn’t control felt appropriate to the character they were developing. He stays in the bounds of being a hero who is going to stop at nothing to protect what he believes is the right call.
The game takes you to many fantastical locations, and unlike a video game where you aren’t really sure why levels and areas are connected to each other, First Light does a really good job moving the story along so that globe trotting feels appropriate even while transitioning between drastically different places. The way areas within each chapter are connected makes a kind of fluid sense to the player.
As you attempt to piece together who the villains actually are and what their endgame actually is, the way the game handles its multiple antagonists keeps up the pace. When you have to engage a bad guy, it couldn’t feel like a more different encounter, appropriately cinematic and full of wit. You find yourself at the edge of failing everyone who is counting on you at every turn. When you finally stop the villain behind this misguidedly evil plot and earn your 00 status, the reason the 7 was chosen is heartfelt and ties together your relationship to other characters and makes you feel like you have truly earned the designation. As the game draws to a close you begin to realize just how much more work there is to be done as the game informs you that “James Bond will return…” and I for one could not be more excited.
Disclosure|Bias: This game was a self purchase. Matty has been a James Bond film and video game fan since early youth with many rewatches under his belt. He aims to provide positive reviews about the games he enjoys and what makes them worth playing.
