The cover’s blown on 007 First Light, IO Interactive’s stealth action game starring a young James Bond. After some teasing and years of quiet work on “Project 007,” we finally know what kind of game the Hitman developer has been cooking up for the iconic character. A short trailer that debuted during Sony’s June State of Play gave us a look at 007 First Light’s original version of Bond, the many locations the story will take us to, and a release date. Well, okay, a release year.
First Light’s announcement trailer has moments that look quite a lot like Hitman as Bond ducks behind cover and tosses objects at enemies, but it also seems to have the kind of explosive action setpieces ripped right out of the films. Unlike Agent 47, though, this baby-faced Bond has a lot to learn before he can truly take on the role of MI6’s spy extraordinaire.
Here are all the details we’ve been able to decode from Bond’s dossier so far.
007 First Light release details
007 First Light will be released sometime in 2026 for PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2. IO Interactive didn’t give an exact date at the end of the announcement trailer during Sony’s June State of Play, but it did promise to reveal more about it later this summer. The trailer also mentions that signing up for an IO Interactive account on the website will unlock the “On Duty” skin for Bond and the “Gilded Wraith” golden weapon skin—which are the kind of concrete in-game bonuses that make me think it’s far enough along that it’ll drop earlier, rather than later, in the year.
007 Fight Light trailers and gameplay footage
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A lot of details are packed into the opening conversation in 007 First Light’s announcement trailer. We not only get a sense of the tone IO Interactive is going for, but a broad picture of its version of Bond through the eyes of his handlers. They describe him as a “bullet without a target,” much like how creator Ian Fleming conceptualized the character back in 1953 as a blunt instrument wielded by the government. This Bond is young, naive, reckless, and unbelievably lucky when things go awry—a perfect lump of clay for MI6 to mold into a dashing killer.
The rest of the trailer plants the seeds for what kind of gadgets and weapons we’ll be able to use as we chase our target, rogue agent 009, across the globe. There’s a watch that sparks a jet engine in a dirt bike, detective vision for highlighting nearby enemies, some kind of pocket tranquilizer dart, a wristwatch laser beam, cars, boats, and a whole arsenal of guns.
Exclusive interview with IO Interactive
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We visited IO Interactive for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the development of 007 First Light. Check it out!
007 First Light story and setting details
We only have the announcement trailer to work off of, but thankfully it’s packed with hints at what we can expect as Bond earns his numbers in 007 First Light. MI6 recruits Bond after making a surprisingly heroic act on a mission in Iceland and fires him directly at rogue agent 009. The trailer shows several brief shots of all the places Bond will visit as he tracks his target down.
Here’s everything about 007 First Light’s story we know so far:
- After losing his parents on a climbing expedition when he was 11, this version of Bond rabble roused through several boarding schools before ending up in the royal navy
- The story is set in the modern day and begins with a 26-year-old Bond who’s picked up by MI6 after a heroic act during an Iceland mission
- His mentor, Greenway, thinks he’s a risk, but reluctantly agrees to train him
- Rogue agent 009 is his target and is described as a “master manipulator”
- Bond will travel to several locations, including what looks like Slovakia and Vietnam
- Familiar characters from the franchise will return, including M, Q, and Moneypenny
- At some point Bond and Greenway will be tied up in a pit full of crocodiles
007 First Light gameplay features
The announcement trailer made it pretty clear that 007 First Light will be a third-person stealth action game that leans more toward the action. There will be a variety of levels set around the world with objectives to chase after. And once you finish the campaign, you’ll be able to revisit each mission with “additional modifiers,” much like Escalations in Hitman.
IO Interactive has been clear about one thing though: 007 First Light isn’t Hitman with James Bond. Agent 47 may be a trained killer like Bond, but his speciality is getting the job done completely undetected. Bond’s approach “has a lot more forward momentum,” narrative and cinematic director Martin Emborg told told PC Gamer in an exclusive interview.
“You need a lot of patience to play Hitman,” Emborg said. “You need to be sitting there seeing the patrol—he goes over there, and he likes wine, and you overhear that thing. But Bond, he can also just walk through the front door. ‘I’m actually just going to go and talk to them. I’m just going to go punch him right now’.”
IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak told PC Gamer that there are “elements in the game that you would expect from IO Interactive—with the freedom of approach, solving puzzles in different ways, and social spaces that are very deep with rich crowds.” But despite having some major differences from Hitman, Abrak said that, for the team, 007 First Light is “all that skill, all that practice coming together and finally seeing the ultimate spy fantasy come to life.”
It’s frighteningly possible Bond knows what TikTok is
Look at him: He’s a barely-out-of-school twenty-something who probably grew up with an iPad. There’s no way he knows what a cassette tape is—which has me convinced he’s got TikTok installed on his phone. I just need one mission to involve Rainbolting the location of a target via someone doing a viral dance on a fake TikTok video.
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