The James Bond franchise has been on hiatus in many ways since the release of No Time to Die in 2021, but it has been on hiatus in the video game space for much longer. The last major Bond game was 007 Legends way back in 2012; a poorly received middling shooter which had you playing through one level from each of the main Bond actor’s eras (developer Eurocom was shuttered after release). A mere 14 years later, Bond is finally back with 007 First Light, developed by the makers of Hitman, IO Interactive. Entertainium editors Eduardo and Gareth have played it, Eduardo on PlayStation 5 with Gareth looking at the PC version.
Gareth: Honestly it’s just a breath of fresh air to get a good James Bond game again! It has been literally decades and the vast majority of Bond games in the past have been mediocre at best, with really only GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 having truly iconic status. I don’t think First Light is a tour de force but it’s certainly a very strong entry and vastly superior to most James Bond games we’ve had in the past. However it’s worth saying, anyone coming to this game thinking that this is “Hitman but with James Bond” will be disappointed. This game is much more in the style of Uncharted, being a broadly linear and cinematic experience. There is the TacSim (Tactical Simulations) mode to play after you’ve finished the story and can provide some more freeform challenges, but the main game is much closer to Hitman: Absolution than to Hitman: World of Assassination.
Eduardo: Yeah, because of the Hitman connection I think I came into 007 with the wrong expectations, which ultimately colored my final opinion about the game. But it’s indeed a great James Bond experience, I absolutely love the way that IO characterised the franchise, the guy they got to play him is amazing, and so is the rest of the cast!
Gareth: I think the story and characters are definitely my favourite part. Patrick Gibson is excellent as young Bond, initially a Navy aircrewman who is thrown into a major mission in Iceland as part of the opening tutorial section. Impressing M (Priyanga Burford), he’s recruited into the rebooted 00 Program and undergoes training with a bunch of other recruits under the stern eye of John Greenway (Lennie James), who resents Bond’s late entry into proceedings. Despite being trailed as the main villain, Lenny Kravitz is actually only a secondary one as flamboyant warlord Bawma, which is good because he was never particularly villainous. Bart Edwards puts in a great performance as who I’d call the principal villain, Damien Webb. Noémie Nakai is likewise good as glamorous thief and main Bond girl, Isola Vale (who is clearly set to reappear in the future).
The main plot concept focussing on AI is well done, but in a different way to the typical “rogue AI wants to destroy the world”; instead it’s about how a supposedly brilliant AI computer used by MI6, able to intercept and prevent criminal and terrorist activities is actually constantly making mistakes, but the corporation behind it is continuously covering it up. It very much mirrors real life how we are currently in a breakneck AI boom despite the actual utility and reliability of AI being extremely unproven.
Eduardo: The great thing about outside of the characters is the story, really. When we start to figure out it’s going to be about AI as we play, it’s difficult not to shudder a bit thinking about all the dumb stuff that would be ahead of us, but lo and behold, they made it into something well worth following along, about the unreliability of the technology and the desperation of its creator to cover up the many mistakes that it makes. It’s the next step to our own reality if you think about how bad AI gets things these days and how much folks rely on it without hesitation. For a James Bond plot especially, it’s quite well done; sure, it falls into the usual movie tropes forcing some crazy action pieces and ridiculous situations with the villains, but overall, I was super impressed.
Gareth: The game kind of straddles three main forms of gameplay. Most missions begin with an investigation phase; enter an area, blend into the crowd, and find clues or talk to people. This is the most Hitman-esque part of the game and also the only parts which are slightly non-linear, usually letting you loose in a moderately large area. This phase will usually morph into hand-to-hand fighting at some point (usually when your stealthing fails), with Bond able to grab items around the environment to hurl at foes, as well as grapple or throw enemies. It’s broadly inspired by Batman: Arkham Asylum’s combat but sadly is nowhere near as responsive, with blocking or parrying often not working if Bond isn’t facing correctly. I really wanted something closer to Sleeping Dogs fighting and while there are snatches of this in how you can grapple and throw enemies around, it’s never as smooth.
Melee fighting will inevitably give way to the gunfights, which alas are probably the weakest portion of the game. The shooting is broadly fine, but the decision to make Bond extremely fragile, to limit him to only being able to hold incredibly meagre amounts of ammo, as well as having the enemies continually using grenades forces a kind of constant movement and running-and-gunning which would be better suited in Max Payne. On the standard difficulty it felt very annoying to be constantly surrounded by half a dozen armoured guys and pummelled from all directions. When I bumped the difficulty down to easy I found the combat much less irritating, arguably making you feel more like James Bond who always has a miraculous ability to be a one-man army.
Eduardo: I’m not going to sugarcoat my opinion about the gameplay. I didn’t get into the way IO approached combat. The hand-to-hand is clumsily done since there’s no manual lock-on and the parry/counter system makes for some truly repetitive encounters. It’s a good thing there’s so much shit to toss into enemies, I certainly did a lot of that in order to speed those sections along. The shooting I eventually got into a groove as I did with Uncharted back in the day, focusing on headshots all the way, making almost no use of their disarm or crippling mechanic. The most infuriating issue, though, is having so little ammo all the time. I get why they did it, it’s annoying regardless!
Gareth: Thankfully the gadgets are all fun, but I wish their use had been governed by a kind of recharging meter rather than having to find batteries or chemicals in the world. The Q-Watch can be used to scan the world in Hitman vision (highlighting enemies and important items), while the dart phone makes targets feel nauseous, making them move or lose focus. The laser watch strap can temporarily blind enemies, while the smoke earpods naturally create a cloud of smoke. I did tend to stick to just the trio of the laser, darts and watch, but the shockwave camera and stun mine could also be useful. I always kept forgetting to use the gadgets during combat except for the rocket pen you get later, which is kind of overpowered (in a good way).
Eduardo: As with Hitman and the way that 47 has access to so many toys with different effects, I was ready to be floored by the absolute absurdity of all of Q’s gadgets. In the end, I found them to be okay in this. It’s convenient to have a rechargeable device that can extend to various uses, but on the other hand that ended up becoming a crutch to my approach to playing, resorting to the same handful of solutions to every situation. I’m glad that not every door was made to be hacked, but I would’ve appreciated more variety when it came to putting these tools to use in missions aside from incapacitating people permanently or long enough to get away or close to them in order to knock them out. For the theme of Bond, I get why it’s like that since he’s not anywhere with the mission to necessarily eliminate like 47, which opens up the way for some deviously creative scenarios for missions, but I’m curious to see how the post-game content of First Light will be shaping up looking back at World of Assassination’s brilliant freelancer mode.
Gareth: I really enjoyed the variety of levels; I think my favourite is probably the one set during a huge gala at the Works & Arts Museum in London (a pastiche of the Victoria & Albert Museum). The mission at the luxury resort in Vietnam is also really well done and certainly has some references to The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). There’s not really that much in the way of car chases except for a few brief setpieces but they’re a nice diversion and feel in keeping with the franchise (Bond stealing a bin lorry for example). The game also runs very well on PC, even with my now relatively old computer and Nvidia 2070 Super, it’s able to keep a stable and smooth framerate with most settings on Medium and DLSS on.
Eduardo: I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get a chance to go all Spy Hunter in the story when finally being able to drive that souped up ride, but knowing it’s going to be something in the later DLC that was just announced, I’m counting the moments til it’s out. For what I got to mess around with vehicles in the game as it currently is, I was satisfied. Sure, some of the action set pieces, especially the giant truck, felt like the game sort of played itself to provide the visual spectacle, really. As for the missions themselves, the variety of locations proved to be their greatest asset, even if I hoped it would provide me with more possibilities to play the way that Hitman does. The script makes that tough to pull off and it’s obvious in the way the game plays. There’s only so much you can do at any given moment, even when the level’s scale tends to point at having much more to offer, there’s no way it’s happening, something so eventually had to come to accept when playing this. For what they’ve done, it’s okay and works within the confines of the story. Now, for TacSim, I want to see much more variety when we start getting those updates they’ve promised…
Gareth: Overall I did enjoy 007 First Light a lot. Yes it has its frustrations with the gunplay and fist-fights, but the story and characters are great and made me actually feel invested in what was happening, caring about Bond more than just a character archetype. It’s obviously still beholden to the tropes of the series with Bond’s womanizing being occasionally played up (plus the sexualization of Bond girls), but he’s overall a lot less of a bastard than he ever is in the novels or most of the films. It might be inspired by Uncharted but the elements of Hitman DNA merged in help to keep it fresh. I certainly hope IOI get the opportunity to do a follow-up, as they’ve more than proved that they can make a successful Bond game.
Eduardo: Oh, definitely! Taking into account just how badly other devs have gotten James Bond in game form, I’m mostly pleased with how IO has done here with 007 First Light. Hopefully they’ll get another crack at it with a sequel, so fingers crossed the recent news in regards to the franchise now that it’s in Amazon’s hands will allow the good people at IO Interactive to cook up another game, they certainly have the knack for it!
