Ian Fleming – TOM CLEMENT | GAME PRODUCER

Sony Playstation’s “State of Play” event was broadcast yesterday, announcing games and showcasing trailers for PS games set to release in the next few years.

Despite lots of cool teasers only one trailer has got me fully invested in the hype-cycle; 007: First Light.

Initially teased five years ago as of writing with the codename Project 007, First Light is…well, the first look at the newest James Bond game since 2012. I even wrote a post speculating what we might see in the final game back when all we had to go on was the teaser.

Developed by IO Interactive, the studio behind the Hitman series, First Light looks to be giving us a radically different Bond to any we’ve seen before, but with a few classic references for fans to find.

And as a fan of both 007 and Hitman, I wanted to dissect as much as I can from it. If you haven’t seen the trailer, here it is!

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On His Majesty’s Secret Service – Dissecting the 007: First Light Trailer

I think anyone that would glance at the trailer for a second could mistake it for the trailer of a new James Bond film. It’s that good.

The pacing, the music, the mix of character charm and action set pieces, it all blends together and hits all the points to get fans excited. It even has the product placement, with Omega watches and Aston Martins being given prime real estate time on the screen (probably courtesy of Amazon’s acquisition of the Bond license back in 2021).

Despite hitting several Bond motifs and references, IOI have stressed in all their statements about the game that it will be an entirely new “origin” story for the character, disconnected from all previous works. It’s the right way to go, cutting off any preconceived notion of who or what James Bond to build him up for a new generation.

The opening dialogue between M and a new character, Greenway (played by The Walking Dead’s Lennie James) sets up our hero excellently, taking Bond’s original backstory from the books and giving it subtle tweaks; witnessing his parents die in a mountaineering accident, bouncing from private school to private school, then enlisting in the Navy and acting with reckless abandon.

It all adds up the M describing Bond as a “bullet without a target”, very similar to how Judi Dench’s M described Bond in Casino Royale, “a blunt instrument”.

And then we see our new James Bond for the first time. It’s a good reveal, seeing his silhouette to begin with, him stepping out into the light, his hand shielding his face for a second, before the corner of his mouth twitches into a grin.

Supposedly modelled and voiced by Irish actor Patrick Gisbon (most well-known as playing Dexter Morgan in the television series Dexter: Original Sin), he’s the youngest Bond we’ve ever seen (IOI list him as 26 in their press-release), yet he still has a few of the marks of Bond from the original text such as the thin vertical scar on his cheek and blue-grey eyes.

The settings look stunning, matching the high-quality of the Hitman trilogy, with locations such as South-East Asian beach resorts, French chateaus, rooftop chases and fireworks shows, and if my eyes do not deceive me…James Bond in a nightclub!

Speaking of the locations, one of the most exciting teases in the trailer is Bond barreling down country roads behind the wheel of an Aston Martin DBS, last seen in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

I speculated in my previous post that driving missions would make their way back into the series and I hope that IOI have done their homework on previous Bond games. Other 007 games have excellent driving missions giving players a small open world to complete their objectives rather than just simple chases.

Another prediction I made of the game would be the return of gadgets. During Craig’s tenure as Bond in both films and games there were less about the individual gadgets of Q Branch, instead cramming all the agent’s needs into his mobile phone.

But two scenes stand out in the trailer; Bond using some sort of dart device to put a guard to sleep, as well has using his laser watch to temporarily blind a bad guy. The laser watch is a staple of the movies and so I’m happy to see it replicated here. I hope we have more gadgets on show with each one being its own item rather than just being interchangeable parts.

Alongside gadgets, the rest of the gameplay loop looks solid, as anyone would expect from the creators of Hitman. Hand-to-hand combat looking nice and weighty (I think I see a Judo hip throw at one point) and Bond looks effortlessly cool catching guns in mid-air or kicking them into his hands.

IOI have also teased that players can use “charming wit” to overcome challenges, so maybe their will be short dialogue sequences or wry comments to choose. There are a few jokes in the trailer along with Bond smiling, so it seems we are getting a more light-heartened Bond that we have in the most recent films.

One final part I want to point out in the trailer is MI6 as an organisation. We get the usual suspects of M, Q, and Moneypenny sprinkled through the trailer, as well as scenes of Bond taking part in combat and firearms training amongst other recruits.

One scene later features M speaking to a group of people that look around Bond’s age, saying “I need all my pieces on the board”. Another line later in the trailer says “009 is a master manipulator. Whatever the endgame is we won’t see it coming.”

In both the books and the films the other 00 agents are only mentioned in passing, usually dying early on and spurring MI6 to send in Bond to clear up the mess. But here it seems that Bond might be working with and also against other agents, which is a unique scenario both for new and old Bond media.

Hakan Abrak, CEO of IO Interactive stated in an interview that they are aiming for a trilogy of 007 games and so I hope that with this cast of potential co-workers we get to see them grow too and interact with them in gameplay.

Either way, this is just the first teaser with the game aiming for a 2026 release date. I am excited to see more as First Light looks like its shaping up to rightfully take the mantle from GoldenEye of being the best James Bond game ever.

_{Banner Photo Source: blog.playstation.com}

_{Screenshot Source: gamefront.de}

James Bond games used to be a major force in the licensed game industry.

Starting with Goldeneye in 1997, players were blessed with a fantastic new game every other year, featuring different play styles and genres as the years went on.

We had the excellent first-person shooter Nightfire, the superb third-person shooters Everything or Nothing and From Russia With Love, and even a remake of the classic Goldeneye, which updated the 1995 film to the modern day, complete with Daniel Craig instead of Pierce Brosnan as the iconic superspy.

But after a few years in the 2010s, with only the poor Quantum of Solace adaptation in 2008, the okay Blood Stone in 2010, and the abysmal 007: Legends in 2012, the series has been dark for nearly a decade. That all changed in the tail end of 2020.

Back in November 2020, IO Interactive, the Danish developer of Hitman, posted a tweet teasing their next game, with the working title Project 007.

The trailer, which is just under one minute in length, shows someone loading a bullet into a gun, before the camera sweeps around to show the iconic gunbarrel, accompanied by the James Bond theme. IO also posted a press release on their website, saying the that the story will be a “…wholly original Bond story…” where players will “…earn their 00 status in the very first James Bond origin story.”

While it is still early days, as a James Bond fan, I’m already hooked on a new game being on the horizon.

With nothing less known about the project, let’s do a bit of speculating, and create a wishlist of things that I would like to see in the game.

For Your Eyes Only – What Would I Like to see in Project 007

A New Bond

With IO’s phrase, a “wholly original Bond story” in their press release, and Daniel Craig stepping away from the role after the film No Time To Die, it seems like IO’s 007 will have nothing in connection with the most recent incarnation of Bond films.

I think this is a good thing. While the mid-2000s were the peak of licensed games, with Spiderman 2, The Chronicles of Riddick, and The Simpsons: Hit and Run, nowadays the market has shrunk to a mere fraction of what it once was.

Sure, every now and again you’ll get an Insomniac Spiderman, Telltale Walking Dead, or WB Shadow Of Mordor, but these are few and far between. However, these games smartly take their setting and characters, and create an alternate universe that stands apart from the more famous media. Project 007 should work on the same factor.

But with no cinematic Bond to base the main character on, what would he look like? In IO’s press release, it says “…players with earn THEIR 00 status”, could we take this to mean that some character customisation could be involved? To take the customisation point further, players could be awarded experience points to make Bond quicker, stealthier, tougher, better with gadgets or weapons, in essence, making their Bond entirely unique to them. I think this would be a fun angle for players, and would be cool to see the different variations that we could make.

However, even though the game is named Project 007, the name James Bond comes up many times in the press release, so sadly I don’t think we’ll be seeing any playable female agents in the main story.

A New (Old) Era

IO’s main series, Hitman, is a thoroughly modern game, always full of hi-tech gadgets and settings. While it would be easy for IO to slip in 007 to these locales, I think it might be fun for the developers to leap back in time. It would be something not just interesting and original for IO by setting it apart from the Hitman series, but would also be new for the Bond license. The majority of the games have been set around the Pierce Brosnan/Daniel Craig era, with one outlier, From Russia With Love, an adaptation of the 1963 film, complete with Sean Connery voicing 007.

Setting the game in the 1950s and 60s means the game would be full of tense East vs. West standoffs, with Bond going against his KGB contemporaries. Being hunted and hunting enemy spies or double agents is a perfect scenario for any spy media, and I hope Project 007 has at least one mission based on this idea.

The 1960s also gives us new weapons, unique architecture, and snazzy suits (we know how much IO likes their suits). Being set in the past, the game also deals with the ‘smart phone’ problem. In more recent 007 games, especially ones based on Daniel Craig’s interpretation of Bond, 007’s smartphone is his primary gadget. It’s a camera, a tracker, a communication device, a codebreaker, it does EVERYTHING. Having the setting be the early 60s means the game can be creative with a range of gadgets, like a laser watch, sonic cufflinks, and coins as grenades to name a few.

_{From Russia With Love has been the only James Bond game to be set in the past. Maybe Project 007 could be the same? (Source: denofgeek.com)}

A Mash Of Genres

Many James Bond games are straight-up shooters, but I think that loses a lot of their character. It’s less 007 and more CoD. To alleviate this, I think a 007 game should have a mix of styles.

Just like the new Hitman games, 007 should be able to shoot his way through to his objectives, but stealth should also be a viable option. It would also be quite refreshing to have a few levels where killing is forbidden or highly discouraged, and we have to focus more on a simple Judo chop or our gadgets than our trusty silenced pistol.

It might also be good to take some inspiration from what previous games got right. The great granddaddy of James Bond games is Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64. While it is chock-full of baddies to blast away, Goldeneye tasks Bond with sending messages, escorting Soviet defectors, installing gadgets, and photographing evidence. These simple tasks made the game stand out since we are doing actual spy work.

Another staple from previous games that was always a joy were the driving sections. IO have never done a driving game, but they could take the same approach to vehicular gameplay as they did for Hitman, using the 2001 game Agent Under Fire as a reference.

In many James Bond games, the driving sections are little more than linear or even on-rails affairs, where players just have to maintain speed and not crash to continue. In Agent Under Fire, Bond is given an open world to drive around in and complete his tasks. These are everything from tracing a suspect vehicle, delivering codes to MI6, to shooting down enemy helicopters. The open approach gives the player so much freedom, where even if they crash or go a different way, they aren’t immediately thrown to the ‘Game Over’ screen. IO should really take inspiration from the past 007 games and recreate what made them fun.

Multiplayer?

Multiplayer deathmatches have become a staple of James Bond games ever since Goldeneye, with players being able to choose from a rogues gallery of prior Bond characters, in iconic locations, and blow each other to pieces.

While IO could implement a fun third-person shootout, I think they could also reuse their multiplayer aspect from Hitman, having two agents (say, MI6 and KGB) race to complete their missions, all the while trying to stop the other from completing theirs.

If we added the customisation aspect I mentioned previously, I think this could be a really fun way to see how different players work with their unique versions of Bond.

IO also have little modes in Hitman such as Contracts (players select a target and test others to kill them in a specific way) and the Sniper Challenge (players have to eliminate certain targets but only with their sniper) that with a little tweak could easily slot into the world of 007. These mini games don’t even have to be connected to the main game, but can be a fun offshoot for players to mess with.

_{The Hitman Sniper Challenge from Absolution. Something like this in Project 007 would be cool. (Source: ioi.dk)}

Conclusion

As I said in the opening, it’s been nearly a decade since we last had a James Bond game. Games have moved on, not just in terms of trends and graphics, but with new gameplay modes and interactivity.

Back in the day, James Bond used to help push the games industry forward, from experienced and lauded developers such as Rare, Eurocom, EA Redwood Shores (later known as Visceral) and Bizarre Creations.

With Goldeneye in 1997, it showed that an FPS could work on home consoles. Everything or Nothing and From Russia With Love are still marvels of artistry and design, with insanely detailed models of Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan. With its new Hitman trilogy, IO have built upon their previous success and made something that is completely unique in the market.

If they can bring the same level of craftsmanship and detail that they bring to Agent 47, I think Project 007 would be well on its way to being not just one of the best games of its year, but the best James Bond game ever.

Banner Photo Source: bosshunting.com.au

Tag: Ian Fleming

007: First Light – Trailer Reaction

Thoughts on Project 007