When IO Interactive first announced it was making a game based on the most popular spy of all time – 007, aka Bond, James Bond – I was beyond stoked. One of my most-played games of all time is 007: Agent Under Fire on PS2. I’ve played through its campaign countless times and put just as many hours into its multiplayer (low gravity, grapple hooks, and rocket launchers all day), and since then, I’ve been wondering when a new 007 would recapture my attention in a similar way.
IO Interactive and 007, on paper, is a match made in heaven; it’s peanut butter and chocolate, cookies and milk, Mountain Dew and Doritos. But when the excitement of this announcement faded, I began to question my feelings. I love the World of Assassination Hitman trilogy and IO Interactive perfected the stealth genre across its three games. I’ve always felt Agent 47 is basically another universe’s 007, perhaps with a touch less suave and sex appeal. But I began to think to myself, “Wait, a Hitman game with a James Bond skin actually isn’t what I want. My dream 007 game needs a lot more than that.” Those thoughts spiraled into a great fear that IO Interactive wouldn’t do enough to make 007 First Light decidedly its own creation at the studio.
I’m so happy to say that after watching a behind-closed-doors demo of First Light at IO Interactive’s rather fancy booth during Gamescom 2025, my fears have been quelled. Though the spirit of Hitman is present in the gameplay I watched, First Light is its own thing, and IO Interactive is taking big swings to deliver a type of 007 we’ve never seen.
Perhaps the biggest change-up from the 007 games I’ve played (and loved) is that in First Light, Bond is just a recruit in MI6’s training program – young, resourceful, sometimes reckless, and not the spy capable of performing in any situation, whether it’s with a silenced gun in hand or a woman at his side.
Before the gameplay begins, the IO Interactive representative sets up the scene, explaining a little bit of the studio’s thought process behind this version of Bond. “[This game is about] the origins of James Bond, a Bond for the players, long before his days of tuxedos and martinis,” they say. “He’s young and relatable, but hasn’t learned the ropes of MI6.” That said, there’s still plenty of the Bond staples to expect, like iconic vehicles, an array of inconspicuous and powerful gadgets, and globetrotting; IO Interactive says First Light will bring players to Iceland, Slovakia, Vietnam, and more.
“First and foremost, you’re playing as a spy, not an assassin,” they tell us, and I breathe a sigh of relief. “Charm, charisma, persuasion, and similar traits are part of the mix. [First Light] combines environmental and social interactions as you bluff, eavesdrop, infiltrate, and find clues to help your mission. But [Bond] is a daredevil and once the action needs to happen, it certainly does.”
This pre-gameplay presentation ends with the team explaining First Light features IO Interactive’s best combat system to date, housed within a “relentless thrill ride that captures Bond at his most daring.” That’s a lot of PR speak, but after the gameplay I shown soon after, I see the vision.
Our mission brings Bond to the Carpathian Hotel in the Slovakian mountains. Not as a spy, though. Not even close. Today’s job has Bond playing chauffeur to some other agents of MI6 after Agent 009. That’s already an interesting wrinkle – MI6 is after one of its own – reminiscent of 2021’s Bond film, No Time To Die. This team is to locate 009 and keep him under close watch without engaging. M, not to be confused with Moneypenny (M’s assistant), calls this a “black tag operation” so discretion is critical.
As Bond and two others swerve through windy roads leading to this hotel, it’s clear First Light is IO Interactive’s prettiest game… easily. The sun, clouds, and treelines above reflect off the black Jaguar Bond drives, but despite the views, he’s not happy about being chauffeur – such is the life of a recruit desperate for more to do on missions.
IO Interactive cuts in to call Bond hotheaded and stubborn, noting that this specific mission – the first in the game – “isn’t just about catching 009; it’s also about shaping the spy Bond will become.”
As the crew pulls in to the Carpathian Hotel to begin the mission proper, we learn 009 was the best in his day, “but that was a long time ago.” Bond’s teammates Cressida and Monroe tell him 009 is tired of running and getting desperate.
After dropping off Cressida and Monroe, Bond parks the vehicle. Through a cutscene, it’s made clear Bond is antsy, unable to sit patiently in a car until his teammates do what they need to… so he steps out of the car, perhaps to get some fresh air. Or maybe to take a look around. He spots a hotel worker, or someone dressed as one, dump a suitcase over a nearby railing. He tells Cressida what he sees and she orders him to stay at his post. Naturally, he ignores this, and so begins what I imagine will be a regular habit of breaking the rules.
Instead of sticking to the car, Bond heads into the hotel. IO Interactive says First Light will feature a mix of linear and more open missions before noting this one is an open mission: infiltrate the hotel however you want.
This is the most Hitman moment of the session as our demo guide shows us various ways to get inside by using the environment, social cues, and more. Though it all feels very Hitman, it features an air of suave that’s unique to First Light. I hope there’s even more of that in the final game.
After talking to a guard, it’s clear that heading through a nearby entrance door isn’t an option. We look around and spot an open window on the second floor and a guard near a water hose. We turn on the hose to distract this guard, and after he leaves the post, we jump into some tall flowers to avoid being seen by another nosy guard. Once hidden in the grass, we shoot a dart at the nosy guard to distract him just enough to allow us to slip by and pick up a lighter on a banister. With the lighter in hand, we slyly walk by a wheelbarrow full of dead leaves, light them on fire, and let the ensuing commotion be the distraction we need to jump over a wall, scale its railing, and climb a pipe up to the aforementioned open window.
Once inside, our new objective is to find the hotel worker that dumped the suitcase, but when Cressida asks for Bond’s status, he lies and says the parking lot he’s supposed to be parked in is all quiet.
Unfortunately, after making it a bit more into the hotel, the demo guide pulls up the menu to showcase First Light’s checkpoint system. I see roughly two dozen, if not more, checkpoints for this mission, and the guide selects one later in the mission that places Bond in the middle of some action. He breaks into a car with a mystery woman sitting as a passenger, and he’s then off to the races chasing after 009. Naturally, Bond has to flirt a little and we learn this mystery woman is Agent Charlotte Roth, with Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure or DGSE – an intelligence agency and France’s MI6 equivalent. She and DGSE have been hunting 009 for a long time, she tells Bond.
Swerving through the mountains chasing after 009 features all the action of a Bond chase you might expect. We drive through sheep-filled fields, bash through gates, ramp over roads, and more. It looks like a blast and I wish I was on the sticks. We eventually arrive to a large plane that 009 is trying to escape on, but between him and Bond is a swath of enemies we have to take out.
IO Interactive says Bond can only ever use “appropriate response measures,” meaning he can’t just kill anyone in his way. But, in this instance, he receives a License to Kill (cheeky) from MI6 and bullets start flying. The gunplay looks solid and sounds amazing, and this set piece is full of action, explosions, and more. It’s already bigger and more cinematic than anything in the Hitman trilogy.
Some more chaos ensues and we find Bond inside the plane, sneaking around and taking enemies out stealthily. We hack into the plane and then use R1 and L1 (on a PlayStation 5 DualSense controller) to bank it right and left, causing cargo and bodies to shift back and forth as we progress to the front where, hopefully, 009 is. As we move forward, we’re able to adjust the plane’s banking on the fly, and though it’s not super clear how this works or whether it’s a cinematic moment or something based on Bond’s gadgetry, it’s an interesting wrinkle to an objective that boils down to “shoot people in front of you and get to the cockpit.”
Cinematics take over and bring us to the end of the mission, where we see Bond fall off the plane, maneuver through the air to reach enemies, and attack an adversary to take and use their parachute.
I leave this demo highly impressed. Not only is IO Interactive refusing to go the easy route – making a Hitman game with the title 007 attached to it – but the team is going an even more challenging route by attempting to give us the man before he’s the man. What I want in a 007 game is a highly capable agent that excels in any situation as if he’s been doing this forever. Instead, First Light promises a cinematic adventure where we learn how a reckless but promising young man becomes the agent we all know and love.
I still have so many questions, and I need to see a lot more of this game, but this demo has me seated for whatever IO Interactive will share from it next.