007 First Light Review: The Best Bond Game in Years

James Bond has had a complicated relationship with video games. For every GoldenEye 007, the Nintendo 64 classic that practically defined the console shooter, there have been a dozen forgettable movie tie-ins content to staple the loudest bits of a generic shooter into a tuxedo and call it a day. So it's a genuine relief to report that 007 First Light, developed by IO Interactive of Hitman fame, is not that. It's a confident, original take that finally gives the world's most famous secret agent a game worthy of the name, striking an excellent balance between patient stealth and frantic, cinematic action. After years of false starts, this is comfortably the most interesting entry the franchise has produced in ages.

First Light also makes a smart structural call: it tells a self-contained story rather than adapting any single film. It follows the youngest version of Bond we've ever seen, charting his earliest years as he trains to enter the fabled 00 program after a heroic act catches the eye of MI6. We're used to meeting Bond as a fully formed, consecrated agent; here, we actually watch him become 007. That shift in perspective is what makes the whole thing tick, and it's a smarter foundation than the franchise has had on screen in a long time.

A Bond origin story done right

The campaign takes its time, and it's better for it. Rather than smooshing Bond's first brush with MI6, his initial 00 training, and his transformative first field mission into a single tutorial, First Light unfolds more like a prestige TV series than a film. There are 17 lengthy chapters, and not one of them feels like filler on the way to the credits. The writing blends real, weighty consequences with a steady supply of on-brand one-liners, and the music shows admirable restraint, saving Bond's iconic musical sting for major moments so it lands every single time.

Familiar faces return in fresh, modern incarnations: Q, Moneypenny, M and others all appear, reimagined for IO's continuity, alongside original characters who cross Bond's path along the way. What sets First Light apart from past 007 games is how much time it spends with Bond outside the action, letting us learn who he is as he forms friendships and bonds with colleagues and mentors. The narrative borrows liberally from the Naughty Dog Uncharted playbook, but laces it with the spy-fiction clichés we love: enigmatic characters, constant twists, and plenty of guns, fists and explosions.

Casting such a young Bond was a risk, and it pays off. Irish actor Patrick Gibson plays an archetypal hotshot, suave with the ladies but saddled with a little too much misplaced confidence everywhere else, which gives him real room to grow as he absorbs the influence of the role models suddenly surrounding him. By the end, he's recognizably the patriotic, heroic man of mystery we know, but watching him get there is the real pleasure. The character work is excellent across the board, helped by extremely realistic facial expressions and impeccable performances, and, as any good Bond story demands, a parade of gloriously caricatured villains, from masked figures to absurdly strong brutes with extravagant speeches.

Gameplay is the real star

As good as the story is, the gameplay is the headline act, nailing a near-perfect balance between stealth and gunplay. The stealth sections wear their Hitman heritage proudly: you're handed an objective and a fistful of ways to reach it, even if the sandbox isn't quite as wide-open as a full-blown immersive sim. Blocked by a guard at a fancy event where you obviously can't just deck him? You might slip around through another entrance, blind him with the laser in your Q-issued watch, or fire nausea-inducing darts from your phone to send him scurrying off in search of a bathroom. There's also a clever bluff mechanic: get caught somewhere you shouldn't be and Bond talks his way out with a convincing excuse, temporarily lowering suspicion while a timer counts down how long the cover will hold.

The best part is that those same gadgets carry over into combat. Mid-brawl, you can blind an enemy with the watch laser and follow up with a finisher. The melee also makes terrific use of the environment: Bond will slam heads into nearby walls and tables, shove foes over surfaces, and improvise with mugs, bottles and empty guns. The gunplay is satisfying too; the arsenal isn't huge, but red barrels are conveniently everywhere, and explosive gadgets like the missile pen are perfect for clearing a crowd. One moment left my jaw on the floor: out of ammo against a tough enemy, I threw my empty pistol at his head, finished him in melee, and as his weapon spun into the air Bond caught it automatically to keep fighting. It's outrageously stylish and keeps the action fluid.

Looks and performance

Running on IO's in-house engine, First Light shares obvious DNA with Hitman, and that's mostly a strength: Bond feels weighty and grounded as he moves, climbs and vaults, and the game often looks fabulous, from crowded clubs to wide-open natural spaces. On a base PlayStation 5 it runs very well: I played in performance mode, which held close to 60 fps for the vast majority of the campaign, with fast loads and no experience-breaking bugs. There's the occasional murky texture and a bit of image blur here and there, but nothing that meaningfully hurt the immersion. The attention to detail is obsessive in the best way, right down to authentically weathered Aston Martins at MI6's training camp.

Where it stumbles

For all it gets right, First Light isn't flawless. In hand-to-hand combat, your worst enemy is frequently the camera: there's no lock-on system, so it would sometimes drift off to focus on some other part of the scene, forcing me to wrestle it back into place while dodging and throwing punches. The story, too, occasionally overplays its hand: it piles on so many plot twists that the effect inverts. Instead of being surprised, I started second-guessing whether every character was who they claimed to be, and the sheer volume of reversals eventually made them predictable.

The most disappointing misstep is how little the game does with its vehicles. Classic cars from the films and some brand-new models show up across the campaign, but they're barely used, and given that car chases have always been a signature of 007, that lands as a real wasted opportunity. It's the one area where the game's reverence for Bond lore doesn't translate into the gameplay you'd expect.

None of those blemishes derail the experience. I went in skeptical and walked away sold. I mean... completely sold. 007 First Light manages to modernize the franchise without abandoning what makes James Bond so iconic, mixing espionage, cinematic action and genuine freedom in its gameplay into one of the most compelling 007 games in years, and arguably the best the series has produced for a long while. I finished it in roughly 16 hours on normal difficulty, playing on a base PlayStation 5 with a copy provided by IO Interactive. If this is the studio's first crack at Bond, the future of the franchise in its hands looks very bright indeed.