- 2 months ago
We've played the upcoming James Bond origin story, 007 First Light. This preview explores the thrilling missions, creative gadgets, and the freedom to be the kind of Bond you want to be, whether you're a silent assassin or a charismatic infiltrator.
Category
🎮️
GamingTranscript
00:00The best Bond moments across the movies and the books are when you don't quite know what the super spy
00:06is going to do to get through a tight situation.
00:08007 First Light embraces this as only IO Interactive, the developer of Hitman, can, by letting you make those decisions
00:17yourself,
00:18steering a young, peppy James Bond who feels like he's up for anything.
00:22Early in my hands-on, I'm in the lobby for a gala with no invitation.
00:26I could slyly poison a guest, swiping their glittering invite while they're nauseous, or find another way to slip in.
00:32Instead, I use a different Bond gadget to temporarily blind the guards and waltz right in, feeling like I'm skipping
00:39an objective thanks to my bold wiles.
00:41That's just the start of my infiltration.
00:44Within minutes, I'm presented with multiple paths to breach deeper through security,
00:48and options to do so that range from silently choking out guards to boisterously trying to befriend them.
00:53007 First Light has me stirred.
01:01007 First Light's gala mission, presented to me as being the sixth chapter,
01:06forms the bulk of my hands-on after playing a thrilling opening sequence followed by a brief slice of one
01:11of Bond's own training missions.
01:13As I slide between rich guests, the comparison between 007 First Light and Hitman World of Assassination are immediate.
01:20The London setting is a stone's throw away from Hitman's opening Paris mission with its glamour, glitz, and layers of
01:27security.
01:27I can briefly chat with the bartender, browse exhibits celebrating the company hosting the event,
01:33and keep an ear open for opportunities as guests rub shoulders and I pray for security weak spots.
01:38My target is deeper within the complex, not at the party itself.
01:41Keycard-protected doors and guards blocking stairs hide restricted rooms,
01:46and beyond them, Bond is sure to encounter more trigger-happy henchmen involved in the conspiracy he is naturally trying
01:52to rumble incognito.
01:54Comparison to the divisive Hitman Absolution also rings true,
01:58but only in the sense that 007 First Light echoes that game's more interesting design choice,
02:03focusing on using quick-witted espionage tricks to always push forward.
02:07While 007 First Light has moments of sandbox play where you can choose different ways to progress,
02:12you're always moving James Bond further into the mission, building momentum.
02:16No looping back. Save that for the replays.
02:19And with the option to reload at mission sub-chapters, I've already played through missions in several different ways.
02:25What's more, the newly announced TAC sim mode promises greater replayability
02:29that nods to the challenges available in Hitman World of Assassination.
02:32It's a forward-focused approach, senior combat designer Tom Marsham tells me.
02:38We want you to move through the level.
02:39We don't want you to be massively concerned with the challenges you've already overcome behind you.
02:44Then, we'll just give you more challenges instead.
02:46And that allows you to make those challenges more difficult,
02:49because you don't have to worry about the stuff behind you.
02:52It's very forward-facing.
02:53The challenge you need to solve is in front of you.
02:56007 First Light's marketing has described playing as Bond in these different ways as a 360 Bond experience.
03:02Mixing car chases, shootouts, stealthy moments of espionage, quieter moments, and more together.
03:08What that really means is that each chunk of a level hands off Bond seamlessly between different modes of play,
03:14in which his moves and abilities are recontextualized in order to meet the shifting goalposts of his mission at hand.
03:19One sequence leads into the next one, into the next one.
03:23But that doesn't mean that Bond is always escalating.
03:26Action will slow for a story moment.
03:27Bond may need to use his silver tongue to progress.
03:30There may be a chase.
03:32Then, guns drawn, for a glass-bursting, cover-volting, heart-pumping few minutes,
03:37until situation-contained flashes on screen, and Bond saunters on.
03:41Like scenes in a movie, excitement is up and down, pull and release.
03:45007 First Light is mechanically dense.
03:48It's not trying to be a movie in how you interact with it,
03:51but it's still echoing a cinematic sensibility in how Bond's adventure progresses.
03:55You won't get sick of endless hallways of shooting baddies.
03:58I get a taste of this in 007 First Light's tense, bare-knuckle opening sequence
04:03that has James Bond, a Navy crewman in training,
04:06barely surviving as the rest of his crew perishes when terrorists blow up his helicopter in Iceland.
04:11As the sole survivor, he's trapped behind enemy lines
04:14as a villainous group attempts to seize control of a secret MI6 asset at a research station.
04:19Staying low, he must approach the station by avoiding enemy line of sight,
04:23and hopping Uncharted-style across ledges.
04:25He moves silently through the enemy camp through a tight series of prefabs
04:29to free scientist hostages, with multiple points of egress and patrolling enemies.
04:34It's a great opening.
04:35The stormy weather and heavy rain really shows what IO Interactive can do
04:39with this updated Glacier 2 engine.
04:42Sure, I'm playing on a doubtless beefy gaming PC, but it's absolutely gorgeous.
04:47Even though I'm told the build I'm playing is missing some lighting effects that they're still tweaking.
04:52Hitman 3 was already stunning. 007 First Light is a step above.
04:57Yet there's this sense, as there can be in a lot of gaming set pieces,
05:01that maybe this opening is a bit of a one-off.
05:04I'm surprised then, when the sixth chapter, the one with the gala,
05:07is able to smoothly move James Bond between differing plot beats and moments of action as well,
05:12tightening up the possibility space when needed,
05:14and then loosening it for moments of creative snooping, that feels very natural.
05:18Especially when I can't help but mentally compare 007 First Light to the likes of the Bond movies.
05:23Though IO Interactive are keen to point out it's drawn a lot from the books,
05:27such as Bond's distinctive facial scar.
05:32Let me roll back that mission for you.
05:34Bond doesn't actually start at the gala.
05:37Instead, the mission begins in his Kensington Flatshare,
05:40where he's jumped by an assassin, ripping him into a fight.
05:43All the set dressing I was poring over can now tumble and break as James Bond gets to work
05:49discombobulating this fella in a deliberately extensive one-on-one fight
05:52that's meant to directly mimic the zoomed-in actions of such moments in other Bond media.
05:57The assassin fight is a really good example of us nailing in on a Quantum of Solace style.
06:02The knife sequence from the movie, and just going like,
06:05this is our close combat system, says Marsham.
06:08This is a gritty encounter with someone who's really tough to bring down.
06:12With the threat dispatched, there's no time to breathe.
06:15Sniper rifle fire shattering Bond's windows,
06:18action transitioning into a staggered chase across the rooftops as Bond must move forward
06:23while taking cover.
06:24The bad guy gets away, but Bond is able to trace him down with assistance from,
06:28of course, Moneypenny.
06:30Hence, the gala.
06:32Here, as mentioned, Bond's infiltration is more about wit than combat.
06:36The lobby opening up the playspace, then the gala itself opening it up wider again.
06:41Once through the layer of security, though, Bond isn't able to trust anyone on staff,
06:46having to make his way through to check the CCTV for his bad guy himself.
06:50This is also an open sequence, giving several wings of restricted space to move through
06:55in order to nab a keycard that'll get him into the room.
06:58With civilian guards, there's simply no way Bond will open fire on these guys.
07:02He could run in and try to batter them, but with lots of them patrolling,
07:06getting pummeled isn't really a prime super spy plan.
07:09Bond's gadgets use an almost Watch Dogs-like interface.
07:13Able to use his Q-Watch and other gadgets to spend a collectible energy or chemical resource
07:18to mess with guards or the environment.
07:20Crouching low, princes can be activated as a distraction,
07:23or radios switched on to draw guards nearer for a silent takedown.
07:27But Bond can also expend energy to interact with these non-alerted guards.
07:32Able to bluff, Bond can use information gathered, some of them optional,
07:36to pretend he's exactly where he's meant to be,
07:38cheekily making out that he's been asked to fix a broken coffee machine,
07:42or that he's a specific journalist he's learned is a no-show through crafty eavesdropping,
07:46and that he's been asked to wait in the area for his contact.
07:49Bluffing won't work on every guard.
07:51Leaders are marked with a Q-Watch UI.
07:54But when it does, they'll have a pop-up timer for how long they'll tolerate your presence
07:58to simply walk through a zone unbothered.
08:00It's a real thrill to pull off, and fits Bond's personality perfectly.
08:04He won't be judo-chopping guards to steal their uniform,
08:07but he's still up for a bit of bold social manipulation to act like he's not out of place.
08:12It's a fresh take on the genre that'll be making best stealth mechanic lists for some time to come,
08:17I'm certain.
08:18Mixing smooth-talking, crouch-walking behind desks,
08:21and using gadgets to disable security cameras and distract guards,
08:24this is a dynamic, snappy sequence.
08:27From there, Bond's mission keeps evolving.
08:29I play a quick boss fight that channels a bit of Batman Arkham City's iconic Mr. Freeze boss fight,
08:35having to mix up environmental traps to get the drop on a sharp, dangerous assassin who's hunting him down.
08:41Briefly moving into a narrative-focused experience,
08:44Bond then ends up making his escape through waves of what Marksham calls
08:47Dynamic Escalation Spaces, where stealth and action collide.
08:52Each encounter here has guards steadily getting more dangerous, more on edge.
08:56But as Bond's escape begins, they won't pull guns immediately.
08:59You can even still bluff some guard groups to get a head start,
09:03using gleaned information about fellow commander names to act like you're on their side,
09:07before weaving through vents and scaffolding to pick them off one by one
09:11so you have fewer enemies to deal with if you break cover.
09:14Only when enemies have clear intent to kill,
09:16whether that's drawing a gun in a fistfight or storming his position fully armed,
09:21is Bond able to respond in kind.
09:23The screen flashing up License to Kill,
09:25to let you know that his privilege from the state has been activated.
09:28In that sense, 007 First Light is almost the complete opposite of Hitman,
09:33only using proportional force where necessary,
09:35and otherwise non-lethally knocking out enemies.
09:38That mission alone took me a good couple of hours to get through on first play,
09:42and it really does feel like with 007 First Light,
09:45IO Interactive has been able to refine its approach to have narratively driven missions
09:50that are constantly evolving stakes and playstyles as you move through them.
09:54I can't think of a better way to approach adapting what James Bond is into a game.
09:59There have been some great 007 games before,
10:01but none of them have managed to capture the experience of a full Bond adventure,
10:06and the way it ebbs and flows between explosive set pieces,
10:09grounded action, and quieter moments like IO Interactive manages here.
10:14007 First Light just gets James Bond,
10:17and I can't wait to be aiming down sights for the full experience,
10:20and hopefully beyond,
10:22when 007 First Light launches on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X on 27th of May,
10:28with Nintendo Switch 2 to follow.
10:30So, will you be picking up this explosive espionage adventure?
10:35Do you think this game looks successful in capturing the essence of James Bond?
10:38And what's your favourite 007 outing?
10:41Let us know,
10:42and stick with GamesRadar for the latest on the greatest games of 2026.
Comments