James Bond games have a rough track record. GoldenEye is the one everyone still talks about, and almost everything since has either been a forgettable cash in or a decent idea that never quite landed. IO Interactive taking a swing at Bond felt like an obvious pairing on paper. The studio built its reputation on Hitman, a series that is basically about being a well dressed professional who blends into rooms full of rich people and kills someone without anyone noticing. That is also, more or less, the job description for James Bond.
007 First Light is an origin story. You play a young, still rough around the edges Bond going through MI6 training, years before he earns the 00 designation. Patrick Gibson voices him, and the game is betting that watching Bond become Bond is more interesting than watching him already be Bond. For the most part, that bet pays off.
The Gameplay
First Light splits its time between two modes. There is the Hitman influenced investigation side, where you are reading rooms, finding angles, and looking for the quiet way through a level. And there is a much more aggressive, constantly moving action side that owes a clear debt to Uncharted and similar third person action games.
The opening level borrows heavily from Metal Gear Solid V, complete with a helicopter explosion and a muddy nighttime infiltration. Bond’s first real mission after that, set in a high end European hotel, plays almost like a direct callback to the Paris level from the recent Hitman trilogy. If you have played those games, the influences are not subtle. But rather than feeling derivative, it mostly feels like IO building on a foundation they already know works.
Where the game finds its own identity is in the combat. Punchouts, gunfights, and the occasional driving sequence all lean into constant motion. You are switching weapons, changing tactics, and reacting fast, and there is a real sense of momentum to it once it clicks. The gadgets help a lot here too. Q’s toys in this game include a laser that can blind enemies, a pen that fires a micro missile, and a poison dart phone, and using them well is genuinely satisfying.
The Tone Problem
Here is where opinions on this game start to split. First Light does not commit to one version of Bond. Sometimes it plays things with the grounded, slightly grim realism of the Daniel Craig era. Other times it swings hard into the kind of over the top, gadget heavy spectacle you would associate with Roger Moore or Sean Connery. The tone shifts from scene to scene, sometimes from minute to minute.
Some reviewers see this as the game’s biggest flaw, an identity crisis that makes the story feel inconsistent. Others see it as the whole point, arguing that Bond himself has always been a character who can be grounded and ridiculous depending on the decade, and that First Light capturing both within one game is actually a strength. Both readings are fair. It depends heavily on what you personally want from a Bond story.
One sequence that has come up again and again in reviews is a scene where Q has to walk Bond, and the player, through tying a bow tie for the first time. It is a slow, deliberate, almost theatrical moment in a game that is otherwise built around speed and violence, and it might be the single best scene in the whole thing. It is the kind of detail that shows real understanding of who this character is underneath the suits and gadgets.
The Pacing
Because this is an origin story, the early hours spend a lot of time on setup. You are building Bond’s skill set from scratch, which means a fair amount of the opening stretch is dedicated to systems and tutorials before the game really opens up. It is not a dealbreaker, but it does mean the first couple of hours move slower than the rest of the game, and some players may find that elongated opening a bit of a slog before the good stuff kicks in.
The Verdict
007 First Light is not a perfect game, but it might be the best Bond game since GoldenEye, and that is not a low bar to clear given how long that drought has lasted. The combination of Hitman style investigation and Uncharted style action mostly works, the gadgets are a blast to use, and the bow tie scene alone tells you the writers actually understand the character they are working with. The tonal whiplash between gritty realism and classic spy spectacle will bother some players more than others, and the slow opening hours ask for a bit of patience.
For a franchise that has mostly struggled to find its footing in games, First Light feels like IO Interactive cracked something real. If this is the foundation for where Bond games go next, that is a good thing.
Our Score: 8.5/10
The tone issues and slow start keep it just short of essential, but the gameplay foundation, the gadget work, and a few genuinely great character moments make this an easy recommendation for anyone who has ever wanted a Bond game that actually feels like Bond.
007 First Light is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. Developed by IO Interactive.
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