Film buffs will have to wait a while longer before they see Agent 007 return to the big screen — but for now, a new video game should give fans a satisfying fix of James Bond.
007 First Light was released this week on all major video game consoles and PC, and sold 1.5 million copies worldwide in its first 24 hours available. That’s according to IO Interactive, the Danish studio behind the game that’s spent years polishing its own take on the genre with the Hitman games.
Here’s what you need to know about 007 First Light — and what makes it the best Bond game in decades.
This ain’t GoldenEye
First Light is the first major James Bond video game in more than a decade, and it comes nearly 30 years after GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64.
That console title brought the first-person shooter outside the personal computer space, and it came with a standout four-player multiplayer mode.
Unlike GoldenEye, First Light is a third-person perspective, purely single-player affair that tells an original story instead of retelling one of the films or novels.
An origin story … about AI?
First Light begins with a young James Bond (played by Irish actor Patrick Gibson) as a rookie aircrewman on a covert mission to Iceland. The plane is shot down and Bond, as the only survivor, is tapped by MI6 to retrieve a mysterious asset from a remote island base.
Shortly after the mission, Bond is summoned to join MI6’s resurrected 00 program. Players will see him joining the other 00 trainees and travelling around the world on missions as he learns the ropes of being a secret agent.
The game is set in the modern day, and bluntly tackles current anxieties about technology. Key to the new 00 program is THEIA — a quantum supercomputer that uses artificial intelligence to track criminal syndicates’ activities around the world and directs agents’ actions in the field.
Researchers in the Q-Lab — where MI6 agents’ fancy gadgets are created — openly muse about whether AI will replace them in between developing gadgets.
And THEIA’s creator, billionaire Sir Nicholas Webb, is an obvious Elon Musk-except-British-and-polite analog — flanked, at one point, by humanoid robots dancing and gyrating like the women in a Bond movie intro. It’s not subtle.
Working the crowd
Bond will spend more of his time in First Light as a spy than an assassin. Most levels throw players in a large social setting that you’ll need to infiltrate while searching for a suspect.
Early in the game, Bond is tasked with sneaking into a lavish coastal hotel where well-dressed socialites have gathered to watch a championship chess match. Players will have to figure out how to sneak inside; you might steal a press badge and pose as a journalist, but not before distracting a security guard by using Bond’s Q-watch to set off a sprinkler system.
A few times per mission, you can use Bond’s charm and good looks to bluff his way out of a fistfight.
If sneaking and bluffing won’t work, you’ll have to duke it out with security guards or murderous mercenaries. When fistfighting, the controller’s response to commands to punch, dodge and parry feels quick and snappy, and you can knock hired goons’ heads against the wall or throw a nearby coffee mug to stagger them.
Cinematic (for better or worse)
Nearly every mission includes a firefight against heavily armed enemies. Gunplay with pistols and rifles is passable, though it never felt as quick or smooth enough to respond to enemy fire.
You’ll occasionally find yourself in car chases: speeding along the Slovakian coast in a muscle car, or crashing through London side streets in a garbage truck (sorry, “bin lorry”).
The pacing can become overwhelming over the game’s 15-plus-hour runtime, as you’re whisked away from one mission and deadly situation to the next, with few moments for a breather. It could have used some more fireside chats to get to know more about Bond’s comrades, like Moneypenny and Q.
Best video game tutorial ever?
That breakneck pace perfectly serves the opening hours, however, when Bond goes through a classic training montage alongside his fellow 00 apprentices. The scene constantly shifts between hand-to-hand sparring, obstacle courses and driving laps around MI6’s training facility on a Maltese island.
It’s brilliantly interspersed with character moments — a brawl with your meathead rival, for example — while teaching players how to just play the game.
Is this ‘the new Bond?’
It’s been more than five years since Daniel Craig’s last performance as Bond, and film franchise owner Amazon MGM Studios only recently said they’ve begun the search for the next actor to take on the mantle.
Gibson’s take on the character is a solid one. As a younger agent-in-training, his version of Bond starts out as a rookie agent — impulsive but not foolish, just unseasoned.
Eventually, that gives way to something more akin to the classic suave spy. He can debrief with M (professional), played by Priyanga Burford, after one mission, and minutes later we see him at a high-society resort in Vietnam, debriefing (unprofessional) with a biologist, played by Raquel Cipriano.
WATCH | Patrick Gibson talks about becoming Bond:
There’s been no suggestion that the films and games will converge, however. CBC News asked IO Interactive for comment on whether Gibson is in consideration to take his Bond to film, but received no response.
If this is the only version of Bond from Gibson and his supporting cast, though, it’s a great one (except for Lenny Kravitz’s brief, astonishingly flat performance as Mauritanian crime boss Bawma).
It’s a scintillating blend of Hitman‘s stealth plus action, and exploration of games such as Uncharted and Tomb Raider — which have in turn taken much inspiration from the Bond films. It’s not one to miss if you have the hardware to play it.
