GAME CLEAR No. 299 -- 007 First Light

007 First Light (2026, Multiplatform)

Developer: IO Interactive
Publisher: IO Interactive
Clear Version: PS5
Clear Platform: PS5
Clear Date: 6/7/26

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Why should I care?
Our buddy Bond is back as a little baby, and it rules.

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Welcome back, 007

It may seem hard to believe, but the James Bond film franchise is in the midst of what shall surely be its longest hiatus ever. For a significant period of the series’s long life, there was a new picture about every two years, but legal disputes following Licence to Kill (1989) caused GoldenEye not to see the light of day until 1995, the longest hiatus in franchise history up to now. Nearly five years have passed since the admirable tenure of Daniel Craig ended with No Time to Die, and casting has only just begun for his successor. It is unlikely we’ll see a new movie terribly soon. Fortunately, IO Interactive has filled the gap with a new Bond (played by Patrick Gibson) as dashing, likable, and competent (and incompetent) as any the series has ever seen.

A lot of the value of First Light lies in that fact. It should also be noted that there has not been a James Bond video game in 14 years, and arguably not a good one for a number of more years. In the past, most Bond games have either been licensed adaptations of the latest film or an original adventure still featuring the likeness of the current Bond actor. Although I imagine the IO Interactive game was set to be an original Bond story arc from the beginning, the lack of an incumbent film star (or ongoing film story) allows their Bond to shine and breathe. At the same time, it’s a big task to get people to buy into a new interpretation of the character. All early sales and critical-reception indicators suggest that IO, Gibson, and First Light have succeeded, establishing what could be a very strong return to video games for the multimedia juggernaut.

Gibson’s Bond’s story begins as a normal, 26-year-old aircrewman for the Royal Navy. When an asset-recovery mission goes horribly awry, James’s crewmates are killed, and he is left to try to accomplish his mission alone. His heroics in doing so result in him being swept, at the behest of M (Priyanga Burford), quickly into training for the recently reborn 00 program at MI6. Over the course of the game’s story, Bond shows naïveté, cockiness, humor, smarts, and capability. His wisecracks and one-liners outpace Roger Moore’s, his gadgets outnumber Pierce Brosnan’s, and although Gibson probably isn’t as handsome as Sean Connery, he’s just as successful at seduction. If I have a criticism, it is that he doesn’t quite mourn or brood like Daniel Craig. The game throws its emotional punches at its baby Bond, but he struck me as a bit too unmoved in them until near the end, when I did see a flash of realistic dismay. Perhaps his stoicism is just the English way. Stiff upper lip and all that.

Nevertheless, I like this Bond and those that surround him. Almost immediately after they are introduced, Bond’s instructor in the 00 training program, John Greenway (Lennie James), takes a strong dislike to him. His fellow spy kids aren’t super keen on him either, as his feat as a member of the Navy propelled him past some of their prerequisites to the school for elite agents. His work ethic and ability ultimately win over his peers, whom he grows close to, particularly agents Monroe and Cressida. But Greenway remains unconvinced of his suitability as a 00 agent even at the conclusion of training.

Despite his grievances, field work forces them to work together in their efforts to apprehend former colleague of Greenway’s and rogue agent Rhys Beckett, 009 (from the previous iteration of the 00 program). Tugging at the strings of conspiracy forces them to work together far beyond that initial task, and Bond’s intuition and reliability begin to wear down old Greenway. Eventually, they pursue the Big Bad as earnest friends. It’s a classic and somewhat trite enemies-to-lovers arc, but the acting (particularly that of Lennie James) makes it a pleasing dynamic to watch.

Series stalwarts M and Q (Alastair Mackenzie) feature familiar personalities, but there’s a reason they’ve worked all these years. M is stern and serious but ultimately backs Bond to the hilt. Q has less patience for his antics but provides weapon-disguised-as-everyday-object tech for him dutifully and always finds a way to deliver timely aid in times of crisis. As in the films, his few minutes of screentime are a joy.

Miss Moneypenny (Kiera Lester) differs from (most of) her novel and film portrayals the most drastically. She’s a handler and nearly always in Bond’s ear when he’s in the field. She provides assistance in finding escape routes and things of that nature as well as technical aid in the form of hand-wavy “hacking” that stories such as these love to feature. Gone are the innuendoes of the flirty secretary from decades past, but it’s a trade I’ll certainly take.

Of course, Bond chases around a femme fatale as well. He first meets Isola Vale ((Noémie Nakai) at a black-tie event (gotta have one of those!), but she makes herself scarce. Later, she gets him out of a bind in a situation in which their interests align. Naturally, she’s cagey about whom she works for and what she wants. Even more naturally, they fuck. I kinda didn’t know if they’d do that in the games! It is, of course, just tastefully implied in a cutscene, but it’s real Bond shit. Gotta have it. In similarly Bond fashion, the two work together on a cooperative mission near the game’s end that takes place at an enemy facility so large, intricate, and well-resourced and at an end of the Earth so implausible that I absolutely hooted and hollered at its reveal. That sort of shit is what Bond is all about!

I’ve split a lot of ink at this point on the characters and setting of this game, but that’s because I think it was IOI’s hardest and most important task. Although I’ve not played any of them, I do know that their Hitman series is widely lauded. I did not fear that they’d be incapable of making a game about stealth and subterfuge from a mechanical standpoint. I was worried about if they’d nail the Bond vibe. A flop there would have been harder to fix. People can believe mechanics will improve as they are iterated upon, but it’s tough to get people to give you another shot at doing right by a beloved world and its characters. It’s with great relief that I say I don’t think IOI has much to worry about in that regard (at least as long as Amazon lets them keep doing what they’re doing).

That’s not to say the gameplay doesn’t matter. Of course it does. The quality splits on display are more or less what you’d expect. Stealing around, looking for keys and documents, knocking guys out, and generally trying to avoid trouble works great. That stuff I imagine is mostly borrowed from Hitman.

Driving around in the obligatory military-grade, modified British automobiles is only okay. It’s part of Bond Bingo, so it had to be in there, but it’s something I really hope IOI will juice up for the next entry. Give me my oil slicks, mounted guns, and silly tricks!

Somewhat surprising to me is that the big shootout setpieces are great. Hitman is not really known for those, but I guess the over-the-shoulder shooter is just such an established genre that IOI was capable of spinning up some solid TPS moments. The one little Bond gimmick is that you can slow down time during shooting sequences with a consumable meter to, I guess, reflect Bond’s superhuman reflexes or whatever. It’s silly, but it’s useful to squeeze off a few timely headshots when you find yourself outnumbered.

Anyway, the bread and butter is the stealth sections, and they’re great. Although I find video game stealth harder and harder to truly buy even with heavily suspended disbelief, ultimately I am here for the navigation puzzles that it entails. First Light features the typical moronic, nearsighted guards you see in these types of games. You typically want to avoid them completely or, failing that, take them out either with a classic stealth-game “get behind the guy and knock him out cold with a single punch” or, more enjoyably, with some goofy Q gadget or environmental aid/hazard. If you can manage neither, you’ll face the consequence of getting caught, which is First Light’s absolute worst feature: hand-to-hand combat. I found the shit absolutely atrocious. It feels like the barest prototype of Arkham gameplay, revolving mostly around punching non-blocking enemies, throwing blocking enemies, and countering attacking enemies. Punching feels like mud, throwing feels cheap, and I found the counter timing kind of awkward. It all just felt bad, man. All the more reason to avoid detection.

However, even if you get caught, the game’s bluff system allows Bond to make up a stupid lie about who he is and why he’s there to buy you a little time from at least the more credulous grunts of the game. That shit is great.

The stealth bits are broken up by big, bombastic moments just as you’d want in a Bond flick. These deliver the goods in the sense that they usually involve you blowing a bunch of shit up and/or driving a huge vehicle through a bunch of buildings in such a way that makes you wonder how exactly MI6 pays for the millions in damage caused by Bond’s pursuit of the bad guys (and how such events don’t end up with him on the front page of every paper). That’s espionage baby.

Suffice it to say that playing as Bond works well enough. There’s room for improvement, but it serves the story just fine, which again I think was more important to do right. It is a solid spy tale with a good, hatable enemy. More importantly, it’s a good Bond story, and most importantly, it’s got a good lead, which I’ll harp on one last time.

Over the course of the game, we play as a scrappy young James Bond. We know because of the basis of the game that he is not yet 007. The game does a good job of never making it feel like he’s quite there either until the very end when — and I don’t think this is really a spoiler — he is indeed minted with the number after saving his country from truly dire straits. Bond seems to become more sober and mature over the course of the game’s 15-20 hours, and he suffers for his rookie mistakes in ways that will surely return to haunt him. He feels like a dumb (if talented) idiot at the beginning of the game but has firmly silenced his doubters by the end.

As the credits rolled, I really felt struck by the realization that at no point in the game was I controlling 007. In that sense, it really made me yearn for the next one! Meddling by the IP’s new ownership aside, I have high hopes for this game’s sequel. Perhaps more than ever, I hope those famous words at the end of the game (and every film) ring true.

James Bond will return.