The new James Bond game has been in development for years. It was announced that IO Interactive, the team behind the acclaimed Hitman trilogy, was making the new game as far back as November 2020.
Following the release of 007 Legends in October 2012, publisher Activision had its licence to produce Bond video games revoked by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Eon Productions, resulting in a seven-year hiatus.
Earlier in the week, the title was finally revealed as 007: First Light. Now the first trailer for the game has dropped, and it looks as if somebody may have stolen Amazon MGM’s thunder here. It has long been rumored that any upcoming new movie would be something of a reboot featuring a younger Bond, possibly before even getting his 00-status. The press release for First Light says:
“007 First Light is a thrilling narrative action-adventure game developed and published by IO Interactive. Follow James Bond as a young, resourceful, and sometimes reckless recruit in MI6’s training program, and discover an origin story of the world’s most famous spy. “
What we can glean from the trailer is that this Bond does not use the likeness of any existing actor. His storyline references the climbing accident that claimed the lives of his parents, which is mentioned in Fleming’s novels but only referenced in Craig’s 007 movies, Skyfall and Spectre, on screen.
It also mentions his expulsion from private school, another feature of the novels. From the footage, it looks like he has the scar on his right cheek that was also from Fleming’s description, but was left out of the movies.
It updates his timeline to the present, and makes use of the theme from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in the trailer.
What is known so far is that 007: First Light will run on IO’s proprietary Glacier game engine, and that it will be enhanced for PlayStation 5 Pro, uses PSSR, and has optimized performance making the game playable at 60 FPS in Quality Mode.
There are rumors this could be the first of a trilogy.
When IO was granted the licence, it was to craft an original interpretation of James Bond divorced from any of the prior literary and cinematic incarnations of the character. That was before the Amazon MGM situation developed. How this now fits with their wider view of the world of 007 remains to be seen.
More gameplay will be revealed this summer ahead of a 2026 release.
