Watch On
I’m not too proud to admit that I’m pretty terrible when it comes to completing stealth missions in games. I’m the kind of player who’ll just kill every threat I see just in case they become an issue down the line. So, for this reason, taking the mantle of James Bond, a secret agent known for his expertise in stealth, has never really appealed to me.
But after seeing just 25 minutes of IO Interactive’s upcoming game 007 First Light at Gamescom, I’m willing to throw caution to the wind if only so I can experience what looks to be some incredible gunfights and thrilling car chases. (Which you can now see for yourself in the video embedded above.)
I saw parts of the first mission during a hands-off at Gamescom, and while it does start out quite slow—with Bond taking on the role of lookout/chauffeur at the Grand Carpathian Hotel—things quickly amp up. Bond spots someone suspicious and manages to follow them inside, abandoning his lookout post and disobeying orders to stay put.
Tailing a suspect then quickly escalates into a heated car chase through the mountain roads, don’t ask me why, though, they skipped that part at the screening. During the chase, Bond simply has to try and catch up with the person of interest, the rogue agent 009, or at least maintain an acceptable tail on them until they arrive at an airstrip where 009 attempts to escape on a plane.
Before this point, I had just been admiring the incredible quality of 007 First Light’s graphics and beautiful set locations like the Grand Carpathian Hotel, while also enjoying a couple of funny quips from Bond. But the ensuing gunfight on the tarmac of the airstrip made me sit up in my seat.
I’m a complete sucker for sick action setpieces; something about it just always sparks serotonin into my caveman brain. But the fights in 007 First Light somehow look even more badass than I had imagined.
The melee combat looks really fluid, with Bond beating people up with whatever he could find nearby or using the terrain to dispose of attackers, instead of waiting for quicktime events or prompts to toss someone over the side of a railing. Then he’s able to transition seamlessly into a gunfight by kicking up a shotgun, which IO CEO Hakan Abrak rightly describes as a “really badass move” and then practically deletes the remaining grunts.
“We put a hell of a lot of effort into the combat system,” Abrak told me at Gamescom. “We wanted it to be wild, unfiltered, and have a lot of emotion to it as well, and be super fluid. You’ve seen some of that in the demo where we have free-form combat, fisticuffs.
“[Bond] goes seamlessly into shooting. We wanted to be much more ambitious than just doing a cover shooter. The systems that the team put together, I’m amazed and really proud of them. I think we really encapsulated that dynamism in Bond as we know him from the movies.”
It may look great, but I’m not completely sold yet. I still want to see for myself how the guns handle in 007 First Light, and whether it’s as easy to take on waves of attackers as it seems to be. But if it turns out that everything feels as good as it looks, then this will be the first 007 game that I absolutely need to play.
But you’re not as enticed by the action as I am, then that’s ok, it looks like 007 First Light will be so much more than one big action sequence. Not only does it have the stealth missions that I am oh so afraid of, but there’ll be multiple ways of getting to the next objective, meaning players can have some agency over decisions Bond will take.
Then there’s the story of how a young Bond will eventually mould into the 007 we all know and kind of fear today. I have no idea how IO Interactive will get to that point, but I’m excited to see, especially when I consider what Abrak hopes players will take away from the experience:
“I hope we will leave a lasting impression. I really hope that this will leave an impact. I really hope that people playing this will laugh, maybe, almost shed a tear, and just feel that they’ve been on a roller coaster of emotions, and that it won’t be something they forget right away.”
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