IO Interactive’s 007 First Light is the first James Bond game in over a decade. Developed by Hitman studio IO Interactive, the upcoming action-stealth game blends the social stealth of Hitman with the action spectacle you’d expect of a Bond film.
While the upcoming game has seen some flack for comments about its more “modern values” interpretation of James Bond, the game appears to be shaping up very well, despite a minor delay. While the gameplay has been designed to give you “new options all the time”, IO Interactive also explains that the game is designed to make you feel like you’re playing a proper Bond film.
Following the announcement of Lana Del Ray’s brand-new Bond theme for the opening of 007 First Light, IO explains that the whole soundscape of the upcoming video game has been designed to replicate the expert sound profile of the Bond films.
“We want the sound of the game to be very handcrafted,” audio and mission director Dominic Vega said in a recent dev log. “We don’t want it to feel artificial. We don’t want it to feel hyper-processed. We want to feel like, ‘I’m playing a film’”.
007: First Light’s entire soundtrack has been orchestrated by live musicians in orchestra, just like the Bond films. Whether you’re barrelling down roads at high speed in an Aston Martin or sneaking through a party undetected, the music has been designed to react to player interaction and feel as high-budget as you’d expect from the Bond license.
“There’s a colour and there’s a flavour that you can feel in music when you’ve got people actually playing on top of it,” Vega explained, adding that “it does a lot to lift the pixels on the screen. The audio and mission director explained that the added sound “brings you into the world, it reinforces the fantasy of being James Bond in this new world to him”.
Additionally, IO has worked to make sure that the specific feel of Bond’s scores are felt within their new soundscape, explaining that “if you’re an audiophile and if you’re just a lover of the Bond music that’s something that’s kind of for you. It’s for people that can recognise and appreciate that little extra care that goes into crafting the sound”.
The team said that “Bond is a music forward franchise”. While there are still signatures from the very first Bond film up to No Time to Die, and now First Light, James Bond’s music always moves forward, hence the addition of pop star Lana Del Ray to the soundtrack for its opening theme.
While 007 First Light has seen some controversies since reveal, such as the game’s PC spec requirements and the performance issues in early footage, the game itself seems to be shaping up well. It’s clear that IO Interactive gets the core of James Bond. While the series has always had video game adaptations—including some great ones—we might be facing the first game that actually makes us feel like James Bond.
007: First Light releases on May 27, 2026 on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. The game’s Nintendo Switch 2 port has been delayed to an undisclosed later date.
