The query I’ve requested myself whereas ready for my first style of 007 First Light has been this: is that this going to be a Bond recreation with Hitman-like ranges, drawing on IO’s expertise with deadly sandboxes? Or is that this going to be a basic action-adventure recreation, mixing fight and platforming with wild set items? The reply, I’ve lately came upon, is: each.
After a hands-off demo at gamescom, 007 First Light has shot as much as the heights of my most anticipated video games. Combining the considerate, self-directed stealth of IO’s latest triumphs with some unbelievable motion scenes, this can be a recreation that sees a studio recognizing its personal strengths, after which stretching them a lot additional.
Doing the Fieldwork
Throughout round 40 minutes, I see sections of a prolonged, multi-stage mission from comparatively early in the sport. A younger James Bond has been despatched into the Carpathian Mountains – together with a squad of different budding spies – to attend the World Chess Championship, in the hope of discovering and detaining a rogue 009. Much to Bond’s chagrin, nonetheless, he’s been assigned solely because the getaway driver.
In set-up, it’s pure Hitman – the lavish resort you go to is full of well-dressed, chattering NPCs, and your aim is tantalizingly imprecise, giving loads of scope for you interpret the mission in your personal means. However the presence of Bond lends it a unique feeling – in a Hitman recreation, you’re empowered to go deadly as early as you’d like, its murkier worldview permitting you to behave with impunity. Bond, nonetheless, has to abide (at the very least considerably) by the foundations.
In 007 First Light, your License to Kill is an precise recreation mechanic – you’re solely allowed to make use of deadly power if an enemy tries to take you down first. Consequently, the opening components of this mission power you to have interaction with the subtler components of worldwide espionage. After noticing some suspicious exercise from a bellhop whereas ready by the automotive (a beautiful inexperienced Jaguar, naturally), Bond begins trying to find a means into the resort.
We see him attempt to speak his means in via the entrance door (with a dialogue choice-based dialog system), earlier than trying a stealthier route. First, he makes use of his Q-Lab branded watch (which can be your minimap) to determine alternatives, and spots a sprinkler system that can be utilized to distract a guard. Utilizing stealth, he creeps right into a staff-only space, waits for the guard to hit a much less seen nook, and makes use of his telephone to fireside an incapacitating dart – I’m very excited to see how far the devices go right here.
Gathering a dropped lighter, he then makes his approach to a gardener’s wheelbarrow, and surreptitiously units the leaf litter inside on hearth, inflicting a bigger distraction, earlier than utilizing a parkour system to scale the resort and sneak in via a window. In a superbly Bond-y contact, he startles some resort employees as he climbs in, and casually explains that he’s testing the safety whereas strolling by.
IO assures us that that is only a single means of many to realize entrance to the constructing and, primarily based on their historical past with Hitman, that feels very clear – this can be a enormous playspace, and I can solely think about there are numerous different routes that could possibly be taken to start the mission correct. Talking of the constructing, IO is using all its Hitman tips to make it really feel like an actual place right here, too – each element feels meticulously designed to each look good, whereas providing true alternatives for play. As soon as we attain the Chess Championship, it’s a real wow second, with some unbelievable lighting enjoying over the frankly huge crowd of NPCs watching on in a retooled ballroom.
However, as I’ve alluded to, that is solely half of the expertise.
Turning into a Blockbuster
The demo skips ahead at this level to indicate us the opposite facet of the First Light coin. Once we rejoin Bond, 009 has been found however escapes in a automotive – which begins a collection of untamed set items.
Bond commandeers a visitor’s car (this time, a classic Aston Martin), and we’re plunged right into a automotive chase down the mountains. It’s pure Bond film – the participant is surrounded by beautiful surroundings, and compelled into harmful shortcuts by scripted moments of excessive motion. At one level, Bond’s pressured to ramp off of a automotive truck, and the digicam provides a full, filmic second of slow-mo to provide the full impact.
Reaching the tip of the chase, 009 has decamped into a close-by airfield, rammed with henchmen, and so begins a real fight sequence. As a primary goon raises their weapon, time slows down and “License to Kill” flashes up on display, and all hell breaks free.
First Light seems to be to be combining ranged and melee fight seamlessly, with a brutality clearly drawing on the Daniel Craig period of the movies. This youthful, extra off-the-rails Bond picks up and swaps weapons with abandon – and when he runs out of ammo, he merely throws it at his nearest opponent, enters hand-to-hand mode, disarms them and, hey presto, a brand new gun to make use of.
There’s an actual emphasis on movie-like enjoyable over painstaking actuality right here. At one level, IO exhibits off a transfer the place Bond prices into an armored enemy, tackles them off of a gantry, and rides their physique to the bottom, earlier than charging again into the fray at floor stage. Parked automobiles appear to blow up extremely simply after a number of gunshots, reworking what could possibly be tedious cowl capturing into one thing extra like a firework-filled capturing gallery.
Ultimately, 009 will get onto a cargo airplane, which begins taxiing up the runway – so Bond steals an airport stair automotive, drives it alongside the airplane, then climbs up the steps onto the wing. A brief melee sequence on the again of a transferring airplane sees him chucking enemies into the wind, earlier than he climbs inside simply because it takes off.
At this level, I used to be certain we had been going to see a “predator stealth” part, with Bond silently dispatching enemies throughout the airplane. As a substitute, it was a lot much less predictable. Bond can hack the airplane’s controls, and what we get is a sequence of fight the place – at any time – the participant can violently financial institution the airplane left and proper, sending the whole lot (enemies, cargo, complete automobiles) lurching backward and forward, clearing a path. It’s a set piece that guarantees a lot – First Light gained’t merely reuse a set of recreation mechanics that repeat from mission to mission, however appears to intention to provide you a extra movie-like sense of pacing, altering primarily based on what’s most entertaining for a given second.
To complete our demonstration, Bond realizes he gained’t be capable to catch 009 – as an alternative turning his watch to tracker mode, attaching it to the hull, and leaping out of the airplane. The one situation? He doesn’t have a parachute. As a substitute, we get a skydiving part the place he catches as much as bailed out enemies, fights them in mid-air, and makes use of their parachute to his personal ends.
Taken altogether, it’s a ludicrously pleasant sequence, one which exhibits IO understands its mission intimately. Sure, this can be a studio with a background in a selected type of recreation, however taking over the 007 license permits them to have their cake and eat it. The truth that First Light will embody the sorts of open-ended sandbox spy missions we’d count on from this studio is deeply thrilling – however that they’re so prepared to sew them along with movie-indebted motion set items is the true mark that they’re going additional with their ambitions than ever earlier than.
007 First Light involves Xbox Sequence X|S in 2026.