007 First Light is the big, mysterious James Bond game that IO Interactive has been slowly chipping away at. After the Hitman trilogy came to an end, there was word that IO Interactive would pivot towards a new franchise, one with a long history of loyal fans. That turned out to be 007 First Light, a brand-new take on the James Bond character and origin story.
IO Interactive only showed us a snippet of the game via a trailer, so we’re left waiting for the actual gameplay aspect to make its debut in the public eye. However, a new conversation between The Game Business and IO Interactive’s CEO, Hakan Abrak, does give us an idea of what they have planned. More specifically, it looks like there are plans underway to keep players coming back to the game well after they reach the end credits.
Hakan noted that, due to World of Assassination, the studio now has a wealth of experience in extending the single-player game. This is done via free content updates to players. You already see this with Hitman and the various elusive targets that are available for a limited amount of time. So, we could see something similar to the world of 007 First Light.
However, James Bond and the infamous Agent 47 are not quite the same. As a result, there’s some newfound freedom for developers to get creative. So, there’s really no telling what we might see added to the game after it finally drops into the marketplace. Hopefully, the developers cook, and we get some thrilling new content and challenges to keep us engaged until that next mainline chapter comes out.
And with Bond, we have really upped our stealth, we have really evolved the action aspects of our technology and features. Seamless combat, coming in and out of range and melee… For Hitman, it was interlocked animations, here it is freeform. We have [players] driving different exotic cars. That gives us more challenges to play with. In Hitman, you have these live challenges. And besides the things that we are able to do in Hitman, we can do more actiony things and more kinetic challenges in Bond.
Of course, the focus at the studio right now is on achieving a solid launch. 007 First Light should hopefully release with a journey that will keep players progressing along with little to no hiccups. Unfortunately, we just don’t know when that game will finally grace its appearance in the marketplace.
As it stands right now, the folks at IO Interactive are aiming for a launch in 2026. When 007 First Light does hit the scene, you’ll be able to play it on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and the PC platforms. Meanwhile, Hitman fans can rest assured that the series is still thriving.
