007 First Light’s Bond (James Bond) won’t be a fully-formed badass from the get-go, according to IO Interactive developers who think it’s more interesting to show how their fresh-faced agent struggles at first.
Speaking to Edge Magazine’s 416 issue, creative director Hakan Abrak said the team “didn’t want to create this superman from day one” with their video game Bond, “where he’s on top of the world, and he’s hardened and seasoned, and he’s had his heartbreaks and now he’s hidden behind this iron armor.”
“That’s not necessarily interesting,” Abrak added.
Narrative and cinematic director Martin Emborg instead pointed to 1962’s Dr. No film, which depicts a Bond who’s sorta over being an unstoppable MI6 agent. “It is pretty insane that Dr No starts… and he’s just fully formed,” Emborg argued. “He’s winning at baccarat against a beautiful woman, who wants nothing more than to have him take her home. He’s drinking, and he’s just kind of bored. This is just another Thursday for him. It’s wish-fulfilment at its maximum, right? But it’s not very relatable.”
There you have it, 007 First Light’s main man will still be an absolute weapon – heck, the gameplay debut showed Bond delivering back-to-back headshots before jumping out of a moving plain almost unscathed – but he won’t be experienced to the point where every mission feels like a chore.
We’ll see how it plays out when the game comes to PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2 on March 27, 2026.
James Bond game 007: First Light “would not have happened” unless it was an origin story: “We weren’t interested in pushing pixels on how good we could make Pierce Brosnan look”
