James Bond. Indiana Jones. Lara Croft. Nathan Drake. Every of those iconic globetrotters was impressed by the one created earlier than them. Now that sample comes full circle, with IO Interactive’s 007 First Light channeling the motion film spirit of Naughty Canine’s Uncharted collection. However that circle kinds a coin, very similar to the one IOI’s different iconic main man retains in his pocket, with two distinct sides. Agent 47’s DNA runs deep in the builders’ new James Bond origin story, to the level that if the charismatic British spy himself sported a barcode on the again of his head, you’d possible scan it and discover out he’d been engineered on the identical manufacturing line. From what I’ve seen of 007 First Light to date, and from speaking to the workforce at IOI, it’s set to be an thrilling mix of each Hitman’s signature do-it-yourself gameplay and a model of cinematic spectacle you’d hope for from one in every of movie’s most enduring collection.
First Light is all about incomes that well-known quantity: 007. However earlier than the quantity, there’s a reputation: James Bond. And behind that identify lies one other: Patrick Gibson. Casting for Britain’s most well-known spy is all the time a scorching matter, however the 30-year-old Gibson immediately appears to be like and sounds the half, getting into the sneakers of the youngest Bond ever put to display. At simply 26, this model of Ian Fleming’s iconic hero is already assured and charming, however with a splash of brashness – a wrinkle of immaturity that’s not but been ironed out. This isn’t the skilled, steely Bond that Daniel Craig most not too long ago gave us, however one very a lot at the begin of his profession.
“I assume first and foremost, this is the story of a younger man who steps into a brand new world,” cinematic and narrative director Martin Emborg tells me. “He steps into this world of shadows and of his future. So it is assembly somebody who has a brighter outlook on life, who’s extra optimistic, who’s a extra relatable younger man. As the viewers, we all know much more about what he’ll have to face in his future, and so we have constructed up a plot and an journey that he has to undergo that may mature him and take him a few of the method in direction of the man that we all know, the seasoned 007.”
On His Majesty’s Secret Service
First Light is a narrative made for “the instances we dwell in”, a phrase repeated all through my go to to the Copenhagen studio by IOI’s CEO and First Light’s recreation director, Hakan Abrak. Not solely is it the first time an official Bond story has had James working in the service of each King and nation, however it’s a story that explores each the optimistic and damaging impacts of contemporary expertise. You’ll study all about how this advantages his arsenal of devices later, however for now, let’s give attention to its menace to the world IO has constructed.
“It is the zeitgeist proper now, proper?” says Abrak about our makes an attempt to wrangle and perceive synthetic intelligence. “Fascinated about ‘How is that going to influence our lives? How is that going to influence our safety?’ AI is actually part of the story. The knowledge. What are you able to belief? And while you’re making a recreation about espionage and working in the shadows, this stuff [combined with] the technological leaps we’re experiencing, there’s plenty of materials there to work on.”
Simply as we’re residing in a world nonetheless getting to grips with the influence of synthetic intelligence, First Light’s Bond is a younger man nonetheless discovering his ft as an agent and, certainly, ticking off many firsts of his personal. IOI teased that this might be the place we see him sip his first shaken, however not stirred martini, and maybe even the first time he’s had to take a life. However, as synonymous with alcohol and violence as he is, he’s additionally famed for the consideration he garners from the girls in his life. By way of firsts in that division… Effectively, IOI confirms that such a life-style is nicely and actually underway.
“I assume it would nearly be form of weirdly cool to say, nicely, this man is celibate,” Emborg poses. “He is a really charming mid-to-late twenties man. Clearly, sure, he has expertise with the reverse intercourse, for certain. So he has this simple appeal. I’m undecided he is essentially tremendous conscious of it, although. It is not weaponised in the method that it is for an older Bond, who will use this for manipulation or to additional his targets. In that method, he is extra like an everyday bloke.”
Common blokes don’t have a tendency to disguise themselves as chauffeurs so as to break into chess tournaments happening at Slovakian chateaus as a part of a mission to monitor down rogue colleagues, although. This is the setup for a really early job that establishes Bond’s mission to herald the traitorous 009, and follows a tutorial at an MI6 coaching facility and a prologue mysteriously titled “The Iceland Incident.” This demonstration stage, which you’ll be able to see play out in the most up-to-date State of Play broadcast, reveals us the two distinct sides to First Light’s gameplay cadence. In a narrative of firsts for the agent in coaching, some elements, particularly on this demo’s opening half, shall be acquainted to these skilled in IO’s masterful World of Assassination.
“He does not essentially stroll round with cash and throw them”, Abrak explains. “Bond is much more impulsive. It is a way more front-footed expertise, so he would possibly simply seize one thing to use for distraction. Bond is extra expressive and extra charming, so perhaps he can whisper one thing to distract the enemies to a sure place that he desires them to go to.”
When denied entry to the chateau, such a risk might current itself, as there are a selection of various alternatives hidden round for you to uncover. I’m proven an instance the place Bond sneaks previous some guards so as to steal a lighter. He makes use of it to set some close by leaves on hearth, making a distraction which relocates a close-by guard, permitting James to clamber up to an open window unseen. One other method, I’m advised, could be to merely pickpocket an invite from a visitor.
“There are a number of completely different routes to try this”, Abrak continues. “Whether or not you need to use your gadgetry or fisticuffs, otherwise you need to use stealth or use your instincts and your appeal to get to the place you need to go. I assume this mix of motion and a few of the components from Hitman is most likely the most complicated recreation we have carried out.”
In fact, for all of its extremely clever systemic and stage design, Hitman has all the time been very foolish. That tone interprets straight into Bond. These two collection share a love of quippy one-liners and an abundance of comical deaths, albeit with James delivering them with a way more figuring out wink, seemingly all the time taking part in to an viewers, fairly than 47’s bone-dry wit. And the place IO’s murderer all the time goes unseen, Bond can not help however draw consideration. Everybody’s look lingers a few seconds longer than customary as he passes. However whereas the two brokers have differing approaches, each present gas for comedy. As Bond makes his method via the aforementioned Slovakian chateau, maids mutter about how they’d love to go away a second mint on his pillow, and a smarmy man feedback on his look, misidentifying him as a well-known mannequin. James will often hearth again, too, utilizing his tongue to get himself out of precarious conditions.
“I assume we did that with Agent 47, clearly, however he is the Grim Reaper”, states Emborg. “He does not say quite a bit to some extent. It is refreshing to write somebody like Bond after having labored on 47.” This newfound license to pun can even lead to some excruciating (but, I concede, nonetheless humorous) moments. When posing as a journalist looking for his misplaced digital camera, James utters the line, “Pictures may be such a damaging expertise”. If he weren’t so charming, you’d roll your eyes so onerous you’d sever your optic nerve.
This personable nature additionally straight feeds into gameplay and how disguises play much less of a vital half in 007 First Light in contrast to Hitman. Bond has no drawback strolling up to a stranger and declaring who he is in order that he might disarm via appeal, and so you possibly can keep away from confrontation by bluffing guards. This prices Focus, a useful resource that depletes a yellow meter on the proper of the display. It’s a strong and expensive talent that ought to be used sparingly, however Focus may be refilled by finishing sure duties, similar to containing a violent scenario by taking out everybody you’ve by chance aggravated.
Two different sources, battery and chemical substances, may be discovered on the face of your Omega wristwatch, situated at the backside left of the UI. These energy your devices, a group of which James steadily accumulates throughout the marketing campaign, in addition to the obligatory Q-watch itself. The timekeeping machine is a lot extra than simply that, although, with a plethora of skills held in its fingers. These embody having the ability to scan the surroundings for conversations to snoop on (and the corresponding alternatives that unlock from listening to them), in addition to having the ability to remotely hack electronics so as to trigger distractions or explosions — it actually takes the watch from Watch Canine on this regard.
Then there are optionally available devices, of which you’ll be able to take three into the discipline with you. These vary from customary stealth fare, similar to smoke bombs that assist in a fast escape, to rather more high-tech instruments, like a useful laser that may enable you to rise up to all types of mischief. “It might probably open sure obstacles, however it can even shoot chandeliers down,” explains Abrak. “It might probably additionally blind folks, it can disarm folks. It is a fairly cool gadget.” He additionally tells me that we “very nicely might have the option to” stroll round Q Department in between missions to examine the MI6 quartermaster’s newest innovations for ourselves — a fantasy ingrained into each Bond fan’s thoughts.
Licence to Kill
There’ll be no scarcity of flexibility when it comes to the marketing campaign’s open areas, then, with the Hitman pedigree shining via – simply with the purple tie swapped for a black tie aesthetic. However the place front-footed fight has all the time felt like a fallback in the World of Assassination, right here it’s offered as a necessity, particularly in First Light’s extra guided encounters. Quick-forward to the finish of the demo’s chess infiltration mission, following one thing presumably rather more explosive than a checkmate, and Bond is behind the wheel of a classic Aston Martin. It’s a second tailor-made particularly for that James Bond fantasy and, even with out getting to play it myself, I discovered myself exhilarated by the automobile chase that follows (even when it does barely outstay its welcome – it’s a lengthy chase). It could not attain the breathtaking heights present in the continuous chaos of Uncharted 4’s famed Moroccan jeep scene, however it does thrillingly transfer us to the chapter’s subsequent large motion second.
Pursuing the runaway 009, James is taken to an airfield housing a completely armed militia. As quickly as he steps into the space, he’s given the essential “Licence to Kill,” which permits him to unholster his firearm and let unfastened. IO doesn’t need Bond to have the option to act like a killing machine in each state of affairs, so lethal pressure will solely be granted when the scenario requires it. The fight itself appears to be like slick, however packing a punch — symbolic of 007 himself, a blunt pressure wearing a pointy swimsuit. He flicks shotguns up together with his ft into his fingers earlier than unloading the cartridges; prices at enemies like a linebacker, sending them to the flooring with a thud; and drills bullets into any close by fuel canisters to engulf as a lot of the base in flames as potential. It’s a formidable sequence that additional showcases a malleability in encounter design, each at deliberate and breakneck speeds.
Bond is extra nimble than the comparatively stiff Agent 47 ever has been, ready to chuck empty rifles at the heads of his enemies and rapidly sprint between cowl in a single clean motion. In a later mission during which Bond is tasked with crashing a Kensington gala, much more creativity is on show, similar to pool balls being lobbed from a desk and into somebody’s cranium, and doorways being kicked in and cannoning into an unsuspecting guard behind them. This promise of having the ability to mix James’ uncooked energy, nifty devices, and environments filled with alternative appears to be like tremendously thrilling.
Again in Slovakia, this experimentation is maybe greatest showcased as soon as Bond boards the aircraft taking off from the aforementioned airfield. After fist-fighting your method throughout the wing and down into the hull, you’re handed the controls to the aircraft, permitting you to sharply financial institution it left or proper. This throws enemies inside the plane off stability, but additionally turns the cargo into weapons. Two-tonne crates slam into troopers, presumably breaking over half of their bones in the course of. It’s these one-off mechanics that assist construct the cinematic complete, making particular person motion scenes actually really feel like large moments. It’s paying homage to the unique Name of Responsibility: Trendy Warfare — its globe-trotting nature, in fact, owing a debt to Bond — in the method it grants you a definite method to play for only one stage, similar to controlling an AC-130 gunship. It’s moments like these that create missions that stick lengthy in the reminiscence.
This stretch of automobile chase, gunfight, and sky-high stuntwork is breaking new floor for IO. A studio that has usually discovered pleasure in the quiet and methodical is having to shift gears significantly, flexing action-adventure muscle tissues which are lengthy rested or, in some situations, not skilled in any respect. Even the slick motion of Kane and Lynch was shrouded in a morose cloud, with smiles coming at a premium. Right here, the Danish builders have had to flick via the unique pulpy fiction to discover an altogether extra swashbuckling tone. “The [original James Bond] books have been positively form of the touchstone for us when it comes to wanting to do our personal factor”, Emborg reveals. “We didn’t need to synthesize and go, ‘Oh, we’re going to cherry-pick this from this and this from this’. It was like, who is this character, and how will we construct him up to swimsuit the story that we would like to inform?”
This construction of mixing the curated with the artistic is paying homage to final yr’s Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle, considerably of an irony contemplating Steven Spielberg owes a lot of his archaeologist creation to Bond — the Raiders of the Misplaced Ark director even wished to helm a 007 film earlier than George Lucas pitched “The Adventures of Indiana Smith” to him. With out Indy, there’d be no Tomb Raider and, in flip, no Uncharted. Whereas the workforce at IO is reluctant to pinpoint particular inspirations exterior of the 007 canon, it would not really feel a stretch to think about Nathan Drake being subbed in for the second half of James’ Slovakian sojourn as explosive purple barrels and parachuteless free-falls punctuate the sequence.
Hitman’s stage design has all the time been gameplay-informed. The bigger narratives have been by no means what drove its many iconic maps. With 007 First Light, IO has had to work a bit of in another way, ensuring that tales – each overarching and small-scale – are always being woven in and out of Bond’s actions. That necessitated a extra collaborative method from the get-go when it got here to designing the content material and circulation of its missions. “All the ranges began in a small group the place we had stage designers, we had artwork administrators, and we had narrative [staff working together]”, reveals Emborg. “It was actually having your large story damaged into segments, which neatly match into apparent ranges. What is going on on on this stage? What are the themes we’re coping with? And having that character-driven method to not solely story, however to stage design as nicely.”
Whereas it’s far too early to say if that method has been an entire success, the indicators are very promising. From the glimpses of two missions we’ve seen, there appears to be an acceptable mixture of each spyplay and motion, all of which appears to drive ahead a narrative, and it shall be intriguing to see what that stability will find yourself trying like throughout the complete of what’s described to me as a “beefy” First Light marketing campaign. That lure of Hitman-like social stealth and Uncharted-scented set items is actually thrilling, however most crucially of all, it all feels very distinctly “Bond”.
From Copenhagen with Love
If there was something above all else that I discovered from my day in Denmark, it is that there’s a definite reverence for the legacy of 007 at IO, and the want to make the first actually unique recreation in the spy’s canon as genuine, but contemporary, as potential. A decade or so in the past, there was a time when a “cinematic recreation” was considered one thing new and thrilling, however now it seems like each single-player AAA enterprise is steeped in extremely detailed cutscenes and narratives that elegantly weave in and out of gameplay. Creating one thing unseen on this style is getting more and more tougher to obtain. As a substitute of treading that path, IO is trying to the supply – each novels and movies – and stamping its personal model of agent motion onto it.
The hallmarks are there, from small particulars like the scar Bond sports activities on his cheek as described in the books, to louder, rather more apparent nods, similar to his vary of Jaguar and Aston Martin vehicles. Its world and characters are dripping with sartorial type, wearing advantageous tailoring and costly Omega timepieces. This stage of licensing may so simply really feel superficial, however these things of luxurious are so ingrained in the world of Ian Fleming’s creation that it would really feel much more hole to be with out them.
In fact, no Bond story is full with no villain. Little or no has been revealed with regard to their identification at this level, and even what number of of them we’ll be coping with. The one clue I’ve seen at this stage is an image of a mysterious determine carrying an impassive Eyes Huge Shut-like golden masks. With most of James’ nemesis’ leaning in direction of the neurotic as opposed to the erotic, I’ll assume this is merely a passing reference, fairly than a full-blown Kubrick crossover.
Then there’s the 007 sound. First Light is described as a really “music-forward” recreation by audio director Dominic Vega, and it actually sounds that method. The rating dips in and out in basic Bond vogue, stabbing scenes with sudden strings but additionally mixing them with jazz swing and synthesised beats that replicate each James’ legacy and future. Composed by The Flight, who’ve had a hand in the soundtracks for Horizon: Forbidden West, Murderer’s Creed Odyssey, and Alien: Isolation, it seems to be utilizing these basic Barry and Arnold refrains to nice impact. Oh, and then there’s the matter of a theme music, which, though circuitously confirmed by IO, was very closely hinted to exist by Abrak and the workforce. It merely would not be a Bond journey with out one, would it? As for who has carried out it? Place your bets now.
Rank the James Bond motion pictures
Rank the James Bond motion pictures
When you can’t inform by now, I’m extremely excited by the prospect of 007 First Light. It’s shaping up to be precisely what I thought and wished it to be when IO first introduced its partnership with the license. The Hitman DNA that I, and so many others, love a lot is there — all the method down to mission briefings offered in a really World of Assassination method, simply with Moneypenny taking up mic duties from Diana — however with that distinct Bond iconography that’s saved the collection so beloved for over seven many years.
Whereas I’m happy to see components of Naughty Canine’s industry-shaping collection seeping in right here, I’m much more glad to see that First Light is not simply “Uncharted however Bond”. IO Interactive has given us a few of the most compelling, systemically partaking gameplay of the previous decade, and to see that there is loads of Hitman company right here is greater than engaging. I’m left very hopeful, and whereas we stay in the darkish as to what form Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Bond movie will take, First Light is trying like a really vivid prospect for the way forward for Britain’s most well-known spying export.
Obtained any burning questions on 007 First Light? Ask them in the feedback beneath, and I’ll do my greatest to reply them for you in the subsequent few days!
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can primarily be discovered skulking round open world video games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Observe him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.