Imagine James Bond: what is he holding? If you answered anything other than “a pistol”, then you might not agree with me on this one.
On Wednesday, IOI Interactive released the first footage of their upcoming game 007: First Light. Games based on the James Bond films used to be a common appearance, but this will be the first James Bond game in 14 years, by the time of the March 2026 release date. Aside from 1997’s GoldenEye, notorious for having a fun but broken multiplayer mode, most Bond games have left little impression, but IOI the power to do something different this time around.
Most Bond games have focussed on re-telling the stories of the films, with various degrees of quality. Sometimes the games could not afford to use the actors’ faces, sometimes they added extra sections to the story, but they were all definitely James Bond.
First Light changes this, with a distinct, high-detail version of the character off on his own adventure. In the 30 minutes of gameplay shown on Tuesday, audiences saw a younger and more eager Bond, as well as the look, characters and mechanics of the world. But after the show, something felt just slightly… off. This is certainly a big budget game, but…
Why doesn’t this Bond feel like Bond?
Between a Hitman and an assassain
Developer IOI is best known for developing the Hitman franchise of games, where the player takes the role of assassain seeking his targets in a massive, complex area. Hitman unquestionably shows off some of the best level design in the business, and given that Bond is known for its exotic settings, this would seem like the perfect developer to take on a modern, expansive James Bond game.
I once heard the Hitman games described as a “comedy puzzle game”, and have not heard a better description of the series since. Each level is elaborate enough to be both challenging and surprising, allowing players to make ridiculous plots that feel like they should not work, but do.
There is a consistent joy that players find in stabbing a target while dressed as a clown, or flattening someone in a wine press. And while these moments of dark comedy echo some of the sillier Bond years, when bad guys met their end by a helicopter scooping up their wheelchair and dropping them down a chimney stack, there are very few moments from the Daniel Craig years that can be labelled as outright “fun”.
Hitman can be fun, but despite the name, it simply does not work as an assassination simulator. Every playthrough relies on dense layers of video-game logic and the forgiveness of the player to hold it together: for example, guards will always abandon their posts to investigate the sound of a coin dropping, even if it drops onto a beach at night. Any object in the world can be thrown to knock someone unconscious, and an instantaneous change of clothes is all that is needed to convince suspicious guards that you’re the real deal.
This sort of silliness would work for a Roger Moore-Bond, but having gone through the grittier Daniel Craig years, is Bond ready to return to silliness?
A trigger pulled in the right place
So what makes a James Bond film?
There is always at least one woman, at least one car, and at least one chase. There will be at least two countries, a title sequence, and a theme song in the charts. There is always a villain, maybe a henchman, and often a gadget, but always a wristwatch and a suit. With one exception, in You Only Live Twice, there is always London.
Bond is British high society. In London, he will take a taxi and never a bus. He might be Scottish, but you will only see him on his country estate, never on the streets of Glasgow. It is totally possible he has never set foot in a football stadium, and doesn’t know what a ‘Greggs’ is.
When you picture Bond, you will imagine him with a pistol, possibly his signature Walther PPK. This is a conscious choice from the filmmakers, since a pistol must be used as a precision weapon, just like Bond himself. While 007 does use rifles, they generally only show up at the climax of the film, and then are only used in precise bursts that never miss their targets.
So when IOI’s preview showed Bond charging headfirst into a firefight, blowing up legions of troops while dodging stray bullets, something felt off. Handing the trigger to players makes it difficult to preserve Bond’s “precision instrument” style, though perhaps there are better ways than placing massive red gas tanks for players to blow up. The firefight on an airstrip shown in the preview felt more Indiana Jones than James Bond.
Translating films to games
Despite the hundreds of early 2000s films with bad video game tie-ins, somehow, we have become more used to games becoming films than the reverse.
Films allow for clever people to navigate complicated situations, but games cannot expect their hero to be intelligent. In games, you are the protagonist, and your thoughts are the character’s thoughts. Writers cannot rely on players to use their abilities in any particular way, so games often offer simplistic plots to set up interesting scenes.
This is also true of many popular films; Mission Impossible offers a series of exceptional stunts but doesn’t expect its audience to remember why they happen. But there is a big difference between Mission Impossible and 007, and the same applies in games.
Despite holding the naval rank of Commander, you would never see Bond commanding troops. Whether suave or grizzled, James Bond himself is made to be a precision instrument, cutting to the heart of a geopolitical conspiracy. Indiana Jones is plucky, Ethan Hunt is relentless, Jason Bourne is coldly calculating, but James Bond is a precise force, with style and a sidearm.
James Bond, alright mate
Creating a distinct version of Bond is a good idea, even if it wasn’t necessary given Daniel Craig’s exit. This version is voiced by Irish actor Patrick Gibson, and seems more Essex-cheeky-chappy than grizzled Scotsman. This feels more inkeeping with the audience games attract, but also the sort of newly-rich upper class of the 21st century who might be more at home in an airport than a post office.
While it’s usually Bond villains with facial scars, this Bond has a prominent scar across one cheek and a smile on his lips of the sort that you wouldn’t find in recent films. It’s easier to imagine this Bond with a cheeky grin than him rolling his eyes, which fits with the game’s option to bluff your way through situations.
This feels like a return to some of the more zany Bond adventures of Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore, which will split opinion but help set this version apart. While the story remains a mystery and the character seems distinctive, the gameplay looks more like Hitman than what a Bond game could be. From this developer, that seems like a logical progression, but for the legions of casual fans that will be lured toward gaming because of this release, will it actually feel like Bond?
I don’t believe that James Bond films are amazing cinema, but as a British cultural export that has recently been wholly sold off to America, it’s worth watching. If this proves to be a success, following on from the warm reception to 2024’s Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, perhaps more great franchises will be tempted to trust big studios with big projects?
007: First Light releases 27 March 2025 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series.