How 007 First Light Does it Better

Before 007 First Light, James Bond has had an extensive history in video games, first becoming a staple of the gaming space in 1997 with the release of GoldenEye. That RareWare classic redefined the first person shooter for the console, introducing expansive levels, a mix of stealth and action and an addictive couch play multiplayer mode which became a staple of 90s video games. The success of GoldenEye kicked off waves of follow-ups and clones featuring Britain’s own gentleman assassin, to varying levels of success like the wonderfully fun Nightfire or the woeful 007 Legends. Almost all of these games followed Rare’s formula, opting to place Bond into a shooter framework, be that first or third person. 

Despite my love for a great many of these games I never felt that adapting 007 into a shooter was a great way to adapt the specific mix of high class espionage and high adrenaline action of the books and films. Bond doesn’t start every film running in with a machine gun, he cases out secret hideouts, tails suspects, navigates complex social environments and has to use his wits and charm just as much as his gadgets. The last Bond game was in 2012 and by that time the series had become just another dime a dozen first person shooter franchise. Compare a frame from any Call of Duty from the same era and I think you would struggle to see the difference. 

That’s why, when IO Interactive were announced as the developers of a new game starring the eponymous secret agent, I knew the property would be in safe hands. The labyrinthian clockwork puzzle boxes that are IO’s Hitman games are about as far away from the explosive shoot em ups of the last two decades of the character’s video game exploits. Those games are far more interested in navigating social environments than blasting through waves of anonymous soldiers. I’ve been anxiously, and rather impatiently, waiting and watching the game develop since that announcement, eager to see if IO would finally evolve the formula and make a game worthy of Bond’s legacy. 

Now that the game is finally here, how did it do? Unsurprisingly, absolutely remarkably. In 007 First Light, Bond shares a great deal in common with the similarly named titular Hitman, Agent 47. Both characters weave through massive open levels packed to the brim with interactable NPC’s, hidden paths and multiple, multi-stage objectives to accomplish your goals and complete the mission. But where Hitman is content to drop you into a sandbox and let you uncover the depths of its systems, mechanics and environmental challenges, 007 First Light has more immediate concerns on its mind, with a more propulsive sense of immediacy which keeps you always moving forward. In Hitman, you can manually save to your heart’s content, micromanaging a given run to get the coveted “Silent Assassin” perfect score. In 007 First Light, there is no such luxury and any mistakes need to be dealt with and moved past in the moment. You can’t run anything back, you can only move forward. I think it’s indicative of the game’s strengths and a great example of how IO have adjusted their previous formula to better fit the Bond property. For Agent 47 getting caught goes against the idea of playing as the perfect unseen killer. But Bond gets caught all the time, that’s part of the fun. 

In all of his adventures, Bond has always had a fairly improvisational attitude. He’s not the kind of character to sidle up to a casino with the perfect plan to infiltrate and eliminate the villain of the given story. No, things tend to always go awry, he beds the wrong woman, gets hooked up to a death trap, and has to scramble to defuse the bomb mere moments before it detonates. THAT is Bond. A scrappy, improviser flying by on the seat of his pants, wearing the garb of the sophisticated ‘has it all together’ secret agent. The joy in playing 007 First Light for me was seeing the extent to which IO have adopted this improvisational spirit into every facet of the game’s design. 

Stealth and action in Hitman were always two separate pillars separated by your discovery by the game’s enemies, you blow your cover and its guns blazing or back to the previous save to try again. But in 007 First Light, discovery opens up a whole realm of possibilities. The ingenious bluff mechanic which allows Bond to slyly adapt to his situation and make up some bollocks story to explain why he just knocked out a security guard or why he just jumped through a window into a restricted area is a brilliant piece of game design, one that’s as fun as it is funny.

A highlight for me was stumbling into a heavily guarded area where I was discovered but managed to bluff my way into convincing the guard that I was testing security for which this specific guard fell well below expectations, leading to Bond firing him entirely. Moments like these are plentiful, dynamic, wonderfully written, and play into Bond’s skill as a social manipulator in a way I have seen no game do before. It’s a brilliant mechanic, one that softens the consequence for being discovered and allows you to continue the power fantasy without blowing your cover.

However, when you do want to take a blunter approach the game seamlessly switches into its ridiculously fun and chaotic combat system. Hand to hand features all sorts of environmental takedowns, grabs, and throwable props, once again highlighting IO’s focus on Bond’s improvisational ability. By the time of the game’s final levels, I felt like an adept, powerful killing machine, using every trick at my disposal to dispatch my opponents to meet the specific challenges of each scenario. I would rush in head on, slam into an enemy, pick up a coffee mug and smash it over their head, before stealing their gun and using it to pick off the rest of his allies. Moments like these are aplenty in 007 First Light and mirror the scrappy, ‘use whatever you can’ approach to action seen in fights like the tussle on the train in From Russia With Love or the opening bathroom brawl in Casino Royale. 

What’s great about 007 First Light’s gameplay loop is that none of these things are separate from the other, you can slip from stealth, into action, into gunplay, seamlessly. At every step 007 First Light is doing its utmost to give options, to allow you to approach each situation as your own Bond would, creating organic moments of emergent gameplay that play out the 007 fantasy better than any game ever has. 

Even beyond combat and stealth, the game allows you to be spontaneous and instinctive in social environments, with moments of conversation and interrogation that allow you to choose the ways that Bond can worm his way out of a jam. The easy highlights of these moments are two death traps, one which mirrors Live and Let Die and another that mirrors Goldfinger. Beyond fun references, these moments allow you to truly inhabit Bond as you try and find a pressure point to exploit, utilising the information you’ve learned about the game’s characters to escape with your life. 

Top to bottom 007 First Light is working to give you the complete James Bond power fantasy. While previous games in the past did the same by giving you an arsenal of gadgets and powerful cars, IO Interactive have sought to more completely honour the improvisational spirit of the character, giving the player choice at every stage to be the Bond they want to be.