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00:00Beyond the Lights
00:11Hey everybody, welcome to the first episode of Beyond the Lights,
00:14a series where developers are reacting to your comments,
00:17providing deep insights, and taking you behind the scenes
00:20of how we're crafting 007 First Light.
00:23This first episode is going to be focused on gameplay.
00:26Let's get straight into it.
00:28Hello guys, I'm Andreas.
00:31I've been at IOI for around 10 years,
00:33and currently I'm the gameplay director of 007 First Light.
00:37Now, let's see what all the fuss is about.
00:45Let's go.
00:49Bye.
00:51Oh, you can lock the door.
00:53Oh, that's amazing.
00:54I appreciate that they broke it up,
00:56underlings may not know everybody involved.
00:58They're an underling.
00:59Like they wouldn't know everybody that's working that location,
01:02but the people in charge would.
01:04So you can't bluff them in the same way.
01:07I knew from like Hitman and Stealth, like you have many different ways to achieve your objective.
01:13But I also love how many options you have in combat.
01:16Yeah, exactly like that actually.
01:18Like we had a similar concept in Hitman with the enforcers.
01:21It's not the exact same thing, but it's related.
01:24So you have these NPCs that can see through you because they know the people working there.
01:30That's the idea about it.
01:32And it helps a lot when you try to create puzzles and setups to challenge the player in various ways.
01:39Keep a low profile and don't let your guards down. 009 most certainly won't.
01:44Career approach, that's one of those fun things where really the base definition is about the player feeling creative when overcoming any given challenge in the game.
01:56And it's really easy to say that, but it's really hard to kind of translate that into what is the moment to moment gameplay that make you feel creative this way.
02:05But from this game we broke it down into the thing that you need to know that there are different options in the game.
02:12If we start violating that trust as developers, the player will forget those options or not use them because they don't rely on them.
02:19And then it becomes much more narrow option space.
02:21So you disregard that or you get less creative at least in that sense.
02:25The last thing, and I think this is a key ingredient that we also had in our prior stealth games in Hitman was, and I coined this as uncertainty in execution.
02:33It's really the thing that you know your own options, you see the options in the environment, and you get to that point where you think, okay, I'm gonna try this thing.
02:41So it might be throwing the smoke device and try to sneak by.
02:44When you get to the other point and get past them, you think to yourself, oh, I did it. It actually worked. The thing I wanted to do, it worked.
02:52That needs a look.
02:54We made games in the path where combat wasn't really the main approach.
03:01So now we have a game where we want stealth and combat to be on equal footing.
03:06Some of the ways that I think we push it forward is, and this is very gameplay focused, it's in the stealth gameplay actually,
03:12where we now have ways to de-escalate situations a lot easier than we've had before, and that happened because we've married some of those bond traits into our stealth mechanics.
03:23So for instance, the bluff.
03:25Oi! I need to find Saunders. There's a chance the suspect is dressed as security. The bastard could be hiding right under your noses.
03:32Damn! I'll keep an eye out for new faces.
03:35Those are ways to kind of contain a situation even though you were spotted in a place where you weren't supposed to be.
03:42You can talk your way out of it or you can de-escalate the situation and maintain kind of your stealth status.
03:48So that loop in a stealth gameplay setting is something that twists a little bit away from the normal stealth loops.
03:57It feels very good to have that second win or a way out at least.
04:01...about the castle and local history.
04:05I wonder if you could help me.
04:06I'll certainly try, sir.
04:08Are we ready?
04:09All right.
04:10Hello, my name is Thomas. I'm a senior level designer on 007 First Light and I've been at IOI for about four years.
04:16So in order to highlight the environment, I think we rely a lot on making sure that the player is actually able to see every opportunity at first glance.
04:25One of the most important part for us is to be able to give information without the player actually thinking about it.
04:31So he just enters the space, look at what he has and sees the options.
04:35And it can be just a railing, it can be two people talking, it could be some kind of eavesdrop opportunity.
04:41But the goal is that we present everything in an impeccable way so that the player can actually glance the options and choose whatever he wants.
04:48When we talk about IOI, we say this is a postcard creator.
04:51Because every time you want to dream about a location, you buy the postcard.
04:54And you're like, oh, what is the postcard of Italy?
04:57And you will say, oh, it's Peace, the tower, right?
04:59It's not just showing you this place, it's showing you what you want to be and where you want to be in that space.
05:04I think what's interesting with having a young Bond is that it's almost a new canvas for us and also for players.
05:13And usually when you jump into the boots of a new iconic character like this, you are trying to match the energy of that character.
05:20And it's very hard to give that to the player right away because players, they just get to discover this character with you.
05:25And having a young Bond is perfect because that means you get to understand what Bond will understand at the same time as him.
05:32So basically you will try and rehearse at the same time, Bond will actually try and rehearse in the game,
05:37which matches the energy that we want to give and the story we're trying to tell.
05:44The laser fires a direct...
05:46Oh yeah, the laser, nice.
05:48Of course the laser, yes.
05:50You can't really make Bond gadgets without having the laser.
05:54Nice.
05:55Go technically on environmental weak points.
05:57Nice.
05:58Just think about the options.
05:59We can disable devices from a distance,
06:01put people to sleep from a distance,
06:02hack things,
06:03smoke bombs,
06:04distract.
06:05When we get caught in a restricted area, we can use up our instinct to bluff.
06:07Exactly.
06:08Think about the options.
06:10This is funny because obviously we've been in various stages of development on this project, right?
06:16And in some of these stages, also in-house, we've talked about,
06:20oh, do you have enough options?
06:22What is it like?
06:23And you had so many options with the games we did prior to this and it doesn't feel like we have the same.
06:28And when you look at them side by side now, Hitman and Bond, you can feel you have a lot more options here.
06:35Some of the things that in gameplay make you actually feel like James Bond is some of the things that you know from the movies also.
06:42It's unique moments where you see Bond fighting on an airplane wing, for instance.
06:47So in those moments you'll feel like Bond.
06:49On top of that, there's obviously the gadgets, which is a key component of any Bond movie and obviously should be in a game too.
06:59We always started too big by having so many options that it actually becomes very hard to see all of them.
07:10And then we just prototype and test and iterate and test and we end up with a few that we really like.
07:16And the rule from every mission and every encounter, rather social or combat, is to make sure the player has at least three or more different ways to solve one option
07:28and one puzzle or one situation.
07:30But there are some of these iconic things, like the laser. That's iconic, right? So we really wanted that in somehow.
07:35So what kind of object does the laser fit on, right? And we also wanted them to distinct from each other.
07:42So if we had a thing for the watch, you've seen the watch being the laser in the movies, but we had other things that we also wanted the watch to be.
07:50So how can we marry those things, right?
07:52When it comes to gadgets, I think the essential part for us was to make sure we provide the players with enough opportunities to use them.
08:01If the player wants to test something and use a gadget somewhere, it should behave the way the player thinks it should behave.
08:07And I think it was just us having fun and trying to find the best way to have fun with those gadgets.
08:13All that in mind with what Bond is and how he should use gadgets.
08:18Because we all know Bond in the movies, he always uses the gadgets at the last second for the wrong usage, but it works.
08:24And I think we also want to provide that, this kind of uncertainty, but you can still do it.
08:28Oh, right in the foot and you see the guy actually go down by the foot.
08:35Yeah, dude.
08:37He can climb this, which wasn't that way at all.
08:40It actually got knocked down after it got exploded.
08:43Look at him, yeet the dude, and then kick his shotgun up into his hand.
08:47Oh, no, that's fire.
08:49This is like exactly what James Bond would be doing.
08:53Holy God.
08:55But that destruction is what we're talking about.
08:57He's grabbing stuff, ramming them, pushing them over their legs.
09:08I love the rushing.
09:09The melee combat feels looks great.
09:11It looks quite versatile and I like that one.
09:14The hand-to-hand combat does look kind of neat, not gonna lie.
09:17I'm sorry.
09:18I'm very excited.
09:20Nice.
09:22Nice.
09:23Nice.
09:24The throwing stuff.
09:26The throwing stuff is doing it for me.
09:29God, I love this.
09:30God, I love this.
09:31Son says don't get up.
09:32I also love it.
09:34And obviously it's about adding all these moves so you can use the environment and you feel you have the range of tools to do what you want, right?
09:43And you see here you ram into things, you throw things from the environment, you throw people around over the environment, into the environment and it's giving you a sense of improvisation, which is really Bond's signature way of doing close combat in this game at least.
10:03Also what you know from some of the movies.
10:05My favorite environment interaction is probably the fire extinguisher.
10:09So it was one where, one of these where, okay, I set out a vision at some point where I'm saying, okay, we need to use these environment set pieces in close combat.
10:19And they need to go off, even though it's not super realistic, it's just so much fun to have it happen, right?
10:25And the signature first attempt was the fire extinguisher.
10:28So you grab somebody, you throw them into a fire extinguisher, and that fire extinguisher blows up.
10:34And it can blow that guy back in your face, or it can blow up other people surrounding him and whatnot.
10:40And the instant we tried it, you just laugh out loud. It's like so fun.
10:45So now it got all over the place, like with cement bags and scaffolding, throw people into those and it blows up.
10:51Yeah, you can shoot them in the feed now.
10:53Let's implement something where we actually register that as not a direct kill.
10:59So this is a way to go through our spaces in a way that you don't kill anybody.
11:05Even though we force combat on you in some specific cases, we make it so you can clear challenges in this way
11:12and clear these spaces without technically killing anybody.
11:17I recently tested another level where I had a similar sequence.
11:21I was shooting somebody, and I ran out of bullets, and the most effective thing was to climb up a few stories
11:28onto a platform. I did that, but when I got there, I had another NPC in my face, and I punched him,
11:35and I needed to take him out fast, so I grabbed him, threw him over the railing, realized I still didn't have a gun.
11:40So I jumped after him, took his gun, there was another guy in my face, and I shot him, but I ran out of bullets,
11:46so I threw the gun, that took out the guy, and ran to him, took up his weapon, and fought on.
11:53And that, it was just, I had to pause the game and put my control down.
11:57I was like, yes, it's actually happening, naturally, the flow of events that we set out to do.
12:02I think level design-wise, when we build combat arenas and encounters, the goal for us is to make sure the player has
12:10enough options to use all the mechanics we have, so gadgets, guns, and melee.
12:15And I think to be able to achieve that, the best way is to provide moment-to-moment and second-to-second options
12:21for the player to always be able to move around, and always move forward.
12:25That's the main thing we try to have, is that the player has to go forward, and he has to be able to actually always find options.
12:31And that means we're not specifically a cover shooter. We don't want the player to stay and stick to one place.
12:37We want him to move around and switch between combat range and also combat melee.
12:42And that means also, like, using all the different things around to provide that.
12:48So combat scenarios are pretty different based on the mission and the context, right?
12:53So I think we have very guided combat moments, where the player is there, everybody knows he's here, and he's been seen,
13:00and you have to fight your way through, like every classic Bond movie.
13:04And in that sense, we usually provide forward momentum with, like, guiding the player towards a very essential and visual element,
13:11so that you always know where you need to go, and you're not lost, so that you can also focus on the combat mechanics we have,
13:17moving forward, going from melee to range, and also trying to find your way through with gadgets.
13:22In our previous games, combat, both range and close combat, was really a last resort for players.
13:28So this time around, we knew we had a protagonist in James Bond that really wanted a good combat experience,
13:35so we knew we had to craft that. We wanted it to be dynamic and reactionary,
13:40and have that improvisation feel, as we know from James Bond as a character.
13:45And then I think the ultimate challenge was really the fact that we have these open gameplay spaces,
13:50where we wanted the player to have total freedom, and you can choose whatever route you want.
13:54Do you want to do stealth, do you want to do close combat, or anything in between, right?
13:59And for that to actually make sense for the player, we knew we had to craft a combat experience
14:05that was on par with the stealth experience.
14:07Some of the aspects in range combat in our game that we really wanted to highlight or emphasize on
14:12was the feeling of shooting a gun, right?
14:15You also need all those base level of functionality and feel that you have from other key shooter games, right?
14:21So we wanted that sound experience to be deep and impactful, and we spent a lot of time crafting explosions, right?
14:27To have that feel, that feels like a beefy, meaty explosion.
14:43In 007 First Life feels like a very novel feature that we're doing here.
14:48It's something we had to invent for this game, because we have a character now that doesn't really shoot first.
14:54You know him as a character that he will use force if he needs to,
15:00but he won't shoot somebody who didn't actually shoot first.
15:03NPC draws a weapon, fires at you, or wants to really badly fire at you,
15:08then we give you life to kill, and now you're also allowed to draw your weapon and fire at him.
15:13That's the car.
15:19It's got too much of a head start.
15:22We had to up our game here, and you can't really have a James Bond game without driving,
15:26so we had to do something, right?
15:27And I'm just very happy that it has gotten together as it has.
15:32So now there's actually driving segments in the game, and you can chase some,
15:35you can do some of these mood driving segments where it's a little bit more calm.
15:39That's usually introductions to levels.
15:42And then you have some high octane chases to have fun with.
15:46I mean, the ultimate feeling we want to give the player is to feel like having played as the James Bond character.
15:51And this just adds so much into that bucket of feeling.
15:55That was the first episode of Beyond the Lights. We really hope you enjoyed.
15:59If you have any questions, please leave a comment down below.
16:02And don't forget, you can pre-order 007 First Light now and get a free deluxe upgrade.
16:08See you guys next time.
16:09See you guys next time.
16:10Bye.
16:11Bye.
16:13Yeah.
16:15Bye.
16:16Oh, yeah.
16:17That's awesome.
16:20All right.
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