I’ll admit to never having been a huge Bond fan, having caught most of the Daniel Craig films as they were released and retroactively dabbled in the Pierce Brosnan era, but never really engaging with the cinema franchise. But the video games, those I fuck with. Goldeneye 007 is an obvious pick, as influential as it has been in the space, but I also had a surprisingly great time with the likes of Nightfire and Everything or Nothing back in the day.
And all of this preamble is not to establish or mediate my level of credibility leading into a review of 007 First Light, the brand-new Bond game from Hitman developer IO Interactive. It’s to affirm that video games and international spy thrillers are a match made in British Heaven, and that’s before you add in the whole immersive sim vibe that IOI brings. So it shouldn’t come as a shock that First Light is very bloody good.
Let’s set up the stakes, shall we? This new take on 007 gives us a brand new James Bond, played young and rough around the edges here by a very talented Patrick Gibson (Dexter: Original Sin, The OA), recruited into MI6 after an SAS job gone wrong sees him in the thick of one of the freshly re-established agency’s operations. From here, players experience Bond’s initiation, training and acceptance into the ‘00’ program and growing relationships with the six other new agents. But, as tends to happen, high-stakes circumstances arise involving competing international powers and impossibly-rich tech lunatics, and what ensues is a good 12-15 hours of globetrotting thrills.
I’m hesitant to say much more than that, given the sensitivity of spoilers, suffice it to say that this is a Bond story through and through, and an original script more than worthy of its legacy. Smart, sexy, funny, impeccably acted and directed, it’s got the sauce and then some. IOI has always shown a hint of a flair for fun espionage stories, but First Light is on another level, no doubt helped by a very polished and expensive-looking presentation that rivals and often surpasses what you might expect from the likes of PlayStation’s first-party stable. The studio’s interpretations of staple characters and spaces within MI6 are particularly well done – Q is a stand-out, and the iconic Q Branch is an incredibly well-realised location that continues to surprise all the way into the game’s closing moments.
Of course, you’ll see much more than just the inside of MI6 in your mission, the game’s linear campaign offering jaunts across a huge number of distinct locales. If First Light does anything right (and it does), it’s variety and pacing. This game moves like a Hollywood film, deftly cruising between blockbuster action and slower, quieter moments that quickly build to tension and then get right back to exploding. You’ll spend a fair amount of time in control of Bond in benign circumstances, solving social and exploration puzzles, but there’s never a sense of want for the next bit of danger – all of it has a place and nothing overstays.
The game is undoubtedly at its best when it cribs from IOI’s experience with Hitman, where open-ended levels ask players to use their wits and wiles to complete objectives without raising alarm. One mission might see you infiltrating a global chess tournament at a luxury hotel, another will have you infiltrating a sub-Saharan black market, posing vastly different circumstances and stakes but inevitably inviting you to engage in a bit of social engineering, classic break-and-entering, open force, or some combination of all of them.
If you’ve played the modern Hitman games, you’ll already understand the level of malleability and convincing reactive progression on display in the level design here, and it remains unmatched. No matter how you play or where your decisions take you, the game doesn’t skip a beat in immersing you in the consequences of your actions – be they good or bad. I’m particularly fond of Bond’s ability to talk his way out of being spotted skulking about places he shouldn’t, a quick button press usually resulting in him making up a convincing enough on-the-spot lie that he can safely stick around for a bit, until his presence eventually raises suspicions once again.
Both natural abilities like this and the use of a growing array of spy gadgetry are pivotal to how you navigate each opportunity, but they’re not unlimited. I took issue for the first little while with the game’s economy of power and chemical resources scattered liberally around every room, plentiful enough in supply that they felt arbitrary. And even more so the invisible resource that Bond needs in order to invent a bluff or simply lure an enemy around a corner, which refills based on your performance. But over time, these revealed themselves to be smart inventions that would force me to constantly approach new tactics or redirect my plans at the last minute in ways that ultimately ended up being entertaining.
And, if all else fails, direct combat works as a fallback. When things are quieter, Bond’s ethics come into play and outright murder is forbidden, so hand-to-hand confrontation comes into play. Though rudimentary on the surface, fistfights play well with the environment, your combos and throws often leading to someone having their head smashed into a bookcase or being chucked over a railing. It’s good stuff. Gunplay, when it’s allowed (or unavoidable), is serviceable. But again, the joy isn’t in your direct control but in how enemies and the environment react and surprise you in either challenging or stupidly cathartic ways.
007 First Light takes plenty of chances to simply stop and employ a bit of spectacle, too, harnessing a bit of that AAA Uncharted-like vibe to create plenty of movie-worthy vignettes. You might spend a few minutes on a thrilling car chase, or a serene bit of boating, or even remote controlling a plane to make it careen out of control while inside of it. You need this stuff if you want to do a Bond game on this level, so it’s great to see IOI rise to the challenge, and these moments are always perfect buttons to whatever preceded them.
Surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly if you’ve clocked IOI’s ethos ahead of time, the best bits of First Light are rarely borne in espionage or action. They’re made of all of the nuance and painstakingly-crafted detail, all the stuff you’ll miss if you rush by but that adds so much to the fantasy of being in a proper 007 story. There’s so much character in every facet of every location and circumstance here, and it’s all meaningfully additive to the experience. Most of all, this opportunity to watch Bond himself develop from a young, brash and hard-headed playboy to a rounded, capable and admirable playboy is something relatively new and genuinely exciting for fans to see.
Reviewed on PS5 Pro | Review copy supplied by publisher
Great
- Fantastic, immersive espionage segments with a huge amount of freedom
- Looks and sounds like a Bond game should
- Great writing and a well-rounded cast
- Crunchy melee combat makes scuffles exciting
- Packed full of great little details
Not great
- Shootouts can feel a bit messy