007 First Light has been designed as the ultimate video game interpretation of James Bond. Complete with its own dedicated soundtrack and opening theme, the game puts players into the role of a “naive” early version of the secret agent.
While the upcoming Bond game has been designed to be as close to the film series as possible, developer IO Interactive explains that is made a few missteps early on in development. For example, when designing the game’s gadgets, they accidentally made Bond far too powerful.
Gadgets have always been a major component of Bond, although they did take a backseat during Craig’s era. For 007 First Light, gadgets are at the forefront of the game, giving players more agency over their environment. However, the original slew of gadgets almost made it seem like Bond had “magic powers”.
Senior Combat Designer Tom Marcham explained to PCGN that gadgets “one of the things on the project that went through the most iterations”. While some of the scrapped gadgets were “really cool”, they broke the believability of the Bond world, and simply could not be allowed within the constraints of the series’ universe.
“We had a couple of gadgets that felt like Bond had magic powers. Just immediately, we were like, ‘Bond doesn’t have magic powers.’ So that pushed the tech too far to the point of being unbelievable,” he explained.
This believability is core to the design of 007 First Light. While gadgets work alongside level design to offer players a large degree of choice in every scenario, everything must fit the world of Bond. Yes, some of the movies have skirted the line of believability, especially for the time in which they released, but it’s important to know where the line is.
“It’s not a cyberpunk game, or a far future, or anything like that; it’s modern day,” he said. “We were very keen to make sure that we stay in this believable world of Bond. Bond has always been a very authentic IP. It feels like it could be happening, but it is slightly elevated.”
While this is IO Interactive’s first take on the James Bond license, the studio is hoping to spend more time within its world. Alongside the eventual Hitman 4, IO has expressed a desire to make more 007 games in the future, but that all depends on the success of their Bond debut.
007 First Light releases later this month on May 27, 2026. The game is also slated to launch on Nintendo Switch 2, although that version has seen a delay to an unspecified date. First Light is also expected to receive a healthy amount of post-launch content, similar to IO’s work on Hitman.
