007 First Light Preview

The 007 IP has gone through many iterations when it comes to the world of video games, from the wildly successful Goldeneye, to the less-than-stellar Tomorrow Never Dies. The franchise has been on hold for a long time and is now finally ready for a new entry with IO Interactive, of Hitman fame, at the helm.

Even before we got a look at First Light, IO Interactive and James Bond just seem like a perfect match. After all, the Hitman series already shares some things in common, such as Agent 47 himself. The big question is how this will all translate into a James Bond experience, so when Gamer Guides was invited to an exclusive hands-off at Gamescom, I was excited to get a first look at the game.

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007 First Light is an origin story for a younger James Bond.

Freedom in Completing Objectives

Let’s start by getting the obvious out of the way: First Light is graphically fantastic, and the new-look Bond is a great fit for this new origin story. In the cutscenes that we saw play out in Bond’s first mission, he captures that charm that usually exudes from him in the movies. With it being his first mission, Bond is the designated driver as the team heads to a function that 009 appears to be heading for, who has gone rogue. Bond, being Bond, however, catches a glimpse of a shady member of staff and goes off to investigate. It’s here that I get a first look at some of the freedom you have in completing objectives in First Light.

You can see the Hitman DNA shine through here the most, as Bond has multiple ways to get himself inside; however, the method we see him settle on is by causing a small fire to attract the attention of security, which then allows him to climb over a balcony and then make his way over to an open window. We saw opportunities for other ways to get inside, and it’s something the developers mentioned, so just this one moment gets us excited for what other scenarios we’ll face.

Bond’s watch is used as a radar in the bottom left of the screen, and it also shows your gadget cooldowns that you’ll be using constantly. You’ll be able to ping the area around you with it, letting you see who you can talk to or what you can interact with. The hotel itself felt very alive, with lots of people standing around whom you can talk to to try and get more information on the hotel staff you’re tracking, complete with dialogue choices.

We skip ahead a bit at this point to check out what a car chase looks like in First Light, and although it looked incredibly fast and fun, I’d have to get my hands on it myself to see if it’s more than just a setpiece, as it didn’t look like there was much variation on where you could go during it. Still, the sense of speed was there, which was the main important thing you look for in a Bond chase.

Entertaining Combat

The final part of our hands-off sees Bond park at an airfield, where it looks like your target is about to use a plane to get away. It’s here I get a first look at how combat looks in First Light, and it looks incredibly fun, despite being another setpiece. It flowed perfectly as Bond leaps over crates, mixes melee with regular shooting, all the while the plane is getting away. It invoked a lot of the same feeling I get when thinking back to some of the better setpieces in an Uncharted game.

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007 First Light is graphically fantastic.

It’s hard to make too much of an opinion on 007 First Light on just this small slice, but what I did see was enough to make me believe that IO Interactive is not only on the right path, but the perfect developer for the latest Bond game. It’s looking like it will have the perfect blend of freeform exploration alongside bombastic setpieces, and that’s exactly what I’m looking for from a new 007 game.