A Big Bond Fan's Hopes For 007: First Light
Speculation, expectation and jubilation with the trailer and Steam page for IO Interactive's 007 First Light
James Bond is more than just a film franchise, more than just one actor, more than a series of novels and an entertainment empire: James Bond is an icon.
007 Is a hyper-lethal idealisation of the quintessential, eccentric British gentleman; suave, sophisticated, sinister and seductive, Bond is the action hero just as adept at peeling off bras, dealing winning hands at baccarat and picking the right Bollinger champagne as he is at unloading his Walther PPK, breaking necks and battering goons.
I love James Bond.
And with 25 (official) films and counting, coming up to 63 years of history and more books being published decades after author Ian Fleming left us, I think it’s safe to say that I’m not the only one.
I’m obviously a big gamer but a massive Bond fan too and that other side of me has been really pleased to see the outpouring of excitement and the sharing of memories that have accompanied the recent unveiling of 007: First Light; everyone is hoping this new game will join the esteemed Mount Bondmore (sorry) of top-tier 007 games like Nightfire, Goldeneye and Everything Or Nothing.
I hope you enjoy today’s post as I lay out what I want to see in First Light, what I don’t want to see and discuss what James Bond is to me and how they can best capture that in this game.
Bond Not Bourne
It should go without saying but the most import part of any Bond game should be to get the character of James Bond right. Now, every actor who’s played Bond has embellished the character with a bit of his own flair: Moore was the wit and charm Bond, Craig brought a fantastic physicality to the role etc. but there are core traits to the character that need to be upheld.
To me, this short scene from Dr. No: the original Bond film, shows us everything Bond should be.
007 Is sophisticated, calm and calculated: he doesn’t shout and he doesn’t swear, even while the bullets are still rattling on the floor after an attempt on his life, Bond quietly holds up Dent and interrogates him, reclining in his chair and continuing his game of solitaire while lighting up a cigarette, completely in control.
Bond is hyper-competent and experienced. Bond has generally always been played by actors over the age of 30 and preferably on the older end of that scale, this is because Bond should be a man of experience and professionalism. He doesn’t cower at the sight of Dent’s handgun and he doesn’t perch at the window for a firefight; this isn’t the first attempt on Bond’s life and neither will it be his last, he’s content to set up a decoy and let his less-dangerous prey come to him, while he sits somewhere out of sight. Bond is the more experienced man, to the extent that he knows more about Dent’s handgun than he does.
Bond is a cruel and merciless killer but he derives no pleasure from taking life. The MI6 are the British equivalent to the Soviet KGB or American CIA: spies, assassins, experts in espionage, 007 is a ‘hero’ that should exhibit villainous characteristics; if a Russian agent delivered a dry, cold line like that, shooting Dent yet again as he lays dying we would assume they are the villain, Bond should be every bit as merciless as his enemies. Yet, at the end of the scene, he almost appears to be self-soothing when his eyes linger on the body for just a touch longer and he blows the smoke away from his suppressor.
But this is mainly a personification of the literary Bond: the James Bond of Ian Fleming’s design, in the films since Dr. No and intensifying after the all-time classic Goldfinger, the cinematic Bond grew apart from his on-page self into a different beast. Like it or not, the overwhelming majority of people are more familiar with the James Bond of the big screen and the game should endeavour to capture his unique characteristics too.
This sequence is too long for me to break it down in the same detail as our last example but it (and Goldeneye as a whole in my opinion) is the finest example of theatrical Bond, even if Sean Bean’s Yorkshire Russian gives me nightmares; there’s a reason Goldeneye is almost its own brand, the film is so beloved and left such an impact that it probably saved the IP from death.
We have funny one liners, we have gadgets, we have iconic stunts, we have Bond’s recklessness and skill in combat, on the fly solutions and coolness under pressure: cinematic Bond is hyper-masculine, lethal and cool as a cucumber but he doesn’t revel in violence or look absolutely bulletproof like a John Rambo or John Matrix.
So, how much promise does 007 First Light show so far in regards to nailing the character of James Bond?
For starters, this is our Bond in 007 First Light… and I have to say I have mixed feelings on his appearance. Don’t get me wrong, our new Bond (possibly modelled off actor Patrick Gibson) checks a lot of boxes: he’s tall, dark-haired, he has the cheek scar from the novels and he looks like a handsome fella to me… but he looks much too young.
In all fairness, a big reason for this is that IO Interactive are wanting to tell a Bond origin story, a little bit like the opening of Casino Royale but considering 007’s former career and rank in the navy and the level of competence he’s expected to show even at this point in his 00 Agent career, the supposed 26 age seems a little too low for me; unless the game is delayed, I’ll be 26 when it launches and I’ll tell you now, I definitely don’t feel competent enough to be James Bond. I think even just a bit of light stubble added to his face might do wonders to remove some of that boyishness and in the UK, facial hair is generally a bit frowned upon in the workplace and by people above the age of 40, so I’d buy his maverick personality more if he had a bit of stubble; there is precedent for this in the films too, in Goldeneye Brosnan has a touch of stubble and Connery sported some in his films too.
On a more positive note, I like virtually everything else we’ve seen of our new Bond so far. The voice performance and dialogue snippets we had in the trailer all sound quite Brosnan-esque and exactly as a younger Bond should: upper class British but with the subtle hint that it’s being put on by someone who hasn’t always lived in that world. As well as that, I totally buy his flirtatious grins and general sense of mischief, a particular highlight being the part of the trailer where he messes about with his new watch in Q-branch, that being said, it would have been nice to see First Light Bond sauntering around in a suit a bit more instead of the tacti-cool coat.
I watched Bond films as a kid of course but when I sat down to marathon the whole series properly as an adult, the changing Bonds always left me feeling a bit unconvinced… until I saw the new actor prowling around in a sharp suit, it’s those moments where I found myself being won over and thinking “Now that is Bond.” We’ve not had a moment like that yet for First Light Bond.
All of these shots are imbued with that intangible energy Gen-Z likes to call ‘aura.’ We learn so much about the actor and director’s vision of Bond by their choice of dinner jacket, the way they carry themselves and even the way Bond sits or stands. I’m still waiting for that moment of aura in First Light’s marketing that makes me think “Yeah, that’s the James Bond we know and love.”
I know I left out Lazenby but he was in 1 film, disguised as someone else and couldn’t act his way out of a wet, pre-shredded paper bag. I don’t care if it’s cool to like On Her Majesty’s Secret Service now, it’s in my bottom 3 Bond films and I’ll die on that hill.
In the words of Gen-Z: bro had negative aura.
No One Can Catch Him, No Hitman Can Match Him
007 First Light’s Steam page offers a lot more details on the game and it’s here I’d like to single out a few things that have me a little bit worried.
Aside from the freedom to approach missions loud or suave, immersive-sim style when you hear about replayable, espionage-based missions with additional modifiers and customisation, what game does that sound like? Hitman 3.
My biggest fear with this game is that it’s going to be a Hitman game with a 007 skin.
007 First Light shares the same engine, developer, genre and perhaps even animations based on the trailer as IO Interactive’s Hitman: World of Assassination Trilogy; those games are really good in their own right and Agent 47 is as close to Bond as the gaming medium has produced… but he isn’t 007 and I don’t want this game to play like those do. Of course, we do want IO’s open-ended approach to level design and gift for capturing the soul of an exotic locale; the Hokkaido Clinic from Hitman 2016 is basically a Bond villain lair and it’s my favourite location in the trilogy because of that.
A bigger issue though is the very idea that you can mow down hordes of enemies to achieve your objectives in this game.
For those unaware, a big reason we haven’t gotten a Bond game in so many years is that Eon Productions: the Broccoli family owned company that retained creative control over Bond from his first film in 1962 all the way up until a few months ago took issue with the way the character had been portrayed in video games, particularly during EA’s time with the license where they coughed up a series of mediocre Call of Duty clones. From what we’ve heard, it took IO interactive a considerable effort to negotiate use of the Bond license and a big reason they got it was because of Hitman and how those games strongly discourage open combat. Now, I’m not against 007 games having huge action set pieces and firefights, far from it! I love Goldeneye to death which is really a 007-flavoured FPS rather than a true Bond game but this aspect of First Light doesn’t sit well in narrative terms.
It’s well-established Bond lore that to earn their 00-status, an agent must kill 2 people; in the books it’s a Japanese cipher expert and a Norwegian double-agent Bond kills, in Casino Royale’s pre-title sequence Bond kills Dryden: a crooked section chief, drowns some poor bloke in a grimy public toilets sink and shoots him but First Light, according to the Steam page is supposed to be about Bond being invited to the Double-0 program after ‘a heroic act.’ But I’ve also heard some outlets describe the story as Bond earning his Double-0 status. Will Bond murder a load of goons and just get out of it through plot contrivance and be rewarded with his License to Kill? Will part of this reimagined origin story see the two-kill requirement altered or even dropped? The Steam page mentions that the plot hook is based off a mission that ‘ends in tragedy.’ Considering IO Interactive is describing this as ‘an’ origin story (as opposed to the) I’m a bit concerned that a lot of key elements of the 007 world and Double-0 program are going to get mishandled.
Part of me has lost the appetite for this kind of Bond story. IO Interactive are planning a trilogy of Bond games with First Light being the rookie days of Bond… the thing is, we’ve had that story just play out across the last 2 decades of 007 films. 2006’s Casino Royale had had Craig’s Bond on his first mission as a Double-0, Quantum of Solace saw him at the height of his agent career, lethal and experienced but still hot-headed, Skyfall and Spectre gave us a traditional Bond experience with Craig being slightly over the hill but widely respected as the best in MI6 and finally in 2021’a No Time To Die we saw the end of his career. Furthermore, Craig’s Bond tenure often took the story and character in directions that barely resembled James Bond at all and had a consistent glum tone so I’m really keen for our Bond games to be a bit of a return to Brosnan-era shenanigans.
This Never Happened to the Other Fella
I should say that despite some of my questioning, I’ve not been looking forward to a triple-A game outside of Nintendo like this for years.
As fantastic as the run of Bond games from about 1997-2005 was, the technology and money wasn’t quite there yet to make a truly authentic Bond experience; for all but 2 of them we didn’t even have a proper Bond voice actor and even then, 74 year old Sean Connery stood out like a sore thumb (rest in peace.) It’s knowing the potential of this game and what we have now that makes me hold it to such a high standard and have so much expectation.
Give us exotic locations, give us classic villains, give us some comedy back, give us seasonal missions like Hitman. Now we’ve exited the Daniel Craig era and are still several years removed from the next era of Bond to me this really feels like the time to give us a bit of a 007 buffet; Hitman has a mission with La Chiffre in Casino Royale right now and I’m salivating at the idea of something like this in a genuine Bond game. That golden era of 007 games in the mid-2000’s also took place between the tenure of 2 Bonds and it allowed for so much creativity; a war between Dr No and Goldfinger, a complete reimagining of From Russia With Love, a true send-off for Brosnan’s Bond, we really had it all when EA controlled the license (you won’t hear that sentence often.)
I’d love to hear your thoughts on who should sing the title song for this game too! We’ve got to have one, after Nightfire and Everything Or Nothing delivered so well. It’s not likely to be an expensive, A-list artist but someone more underground.
We’ve gotten a few glimpses at a variety of exotic locations so far. Iceland is mentioned and featured in the trailer along with glimpses of somewhere in Southeast Asia and a few more European, stately feeling locations and that fills me with a lot of joy. 007 Has been all about dour and grit and muddy filters since the Brosnan days and it finally seems we’re putting that all behind us to embrace the kind of travelogue elements that have me swooning to this day when I watch Sean Connery in Jamaica in Dr No or in Switzerland in Goldfinger.
Oh Grow Up, 007!
The most encouraging part of the 007 First Light trailer for me wasn’t the fancy graphics, the open-ended gameplay, the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service theme, driving section or even the cheek scar, it was the feeling that IO Interactive actually hold a lot of love and respect for this IP.
Between Rings of Power, the awful recent Doctor Who series, the modern re-evaluation and cancelling of Rudyard Kipling’s work and the ideas floated recently of censoring Roald Dahl’s books I’ve become sick to death of beloved British properties being bought up by Amazon, Netflix and other US mega corps, staffed by people who detest these IP’s and have probably never set foot in Britain in their entire lives and then subsequently ‘reimagined’ to push America-centric social commentary and values, usually in direct contradiction to the ideas and intent of those original authors. This is the literary and cultural heritage of my country we’re talking about here and given the fact that Amazon now completely control the 007 film series and are likely to begin churning out a film about every damn character that every appeared on-screen, I’m glad that Danish IO Interactive appear to be giving 007 some respect and not trying to make the series something it isn’t, or to pander to the audience.
007 Video games have a funny habit of stumbling into history. Goldeneye: a game delayed until 2 years after the film’s launch became arguably the most important shooter of all time, From Russia With Love on the PS2 was the last time Sean Connery ever reprised his role as James Bond and similarly, Everything Or Nothing was the last time Pierce Brosnan got to play Bond; now, First Light is the final project under Eon Productions’ creative control of 007.
For a lot of Bond fans, the arrival of First Light is almost bittersweet: the final act in a beloved property that very well might be heading for its death. In 2026 that opening gun barrel sequence and title song very well might be the last we see of the Bond property before the charm is ruined by a wave of sludge and the character we know and love is rendered unrecognisable by people who hate him.
This was a much longer, broader and more detailed post than I had originally planned to make, I hope the points resonate.
Feel free to mingle with me down in the comments and if you’d like to support the Journal please like and subscribe and consider a donation to my Ko-Fi page.
I literally have no idea what to expect from First Light. Until recently, I wouldn't have even considered playing it because I know nothing about 007 games (unlike the movies) and I'd expect a shooter at worst, an action-only game at best. Now I don't know. Story-wise, origin stories are such wild cards, could go into any direction, really. So we'll see.
I hope what comes out pleases you!
As a huge Bond fan, I have to say that I identified a lot with your post. Even your movies rank that you shared on the Notes is very close to mine (although I would put No Time to Die on the bottom of the list and move Skyfall to the top).
But what I really like about your analysis and impressions is that you made me look to things I wasn't paying attention due to my initial overly-optimistic perception of the trailer. Your concerns are valid, and I hope IO Interactive can deliver something that is less Hitman and more 007.
Anyway, it's good to have a new high profile James Bond game to wait for! Here's hoping it justifies the hype.