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A new Bond is nearly upon us, as 007 First Light, IO Interactive's stealth action game, is finally releasing this month. Are you shaken? Stirred? Disappointed in me already? Well however you feel, there's no denying this is going to be a big release, for gamers and Bond fans alike.
After many years of only knowing the game as "Project 007," we finally know a lot about what the Hitman developer has been cooking up for the iconic character. While First Light absolutely has stealthier moments, it also has gunplay, fist fights, and explosive action set pieces 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.
To prepare you for launch day, here's all the details we've been able to decode from Bond's dossier so far.
May, 2025: It's release month, and we've got a 007 First Light preview to set your expectations of IO's take on Bond. Plus, we've added a new trailer dedicated to all the spycraft techniques at your disposal.
007 First Light release details
There's not long left now, as 007 First Light releases on May 27th, 2026 for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5. The Nintendo Switch 2 version has been delayed to "later this summer." It was previously announced during Sony's 2025 September State of Play that the game would release on March 27, but social media posts in December revealed that First Light had been delayed by two months.
It's taken quite a while to get to this point, as First Light (then called "Project 007") was revealed by IO Interactive all the way back in November 2020. The next significant update came five years later when its proper title was revealed. More details, and the game's first trailer, then debuted during Sony's June State of Play a few days later.
Sony's latest State of Play provided the best look at First Light so far, though, with over 30 mins of gameplay, a nice chunk of exposition, and lots of cool gadgets, guns, fist fights, and infiltration tactics on display.
007 First Light trailers and gameplay footage
Spycraft trailer
Want a deeper look at look at at those fancy Bond gadgets in action? Well, Q's fancy gadgets in action, really. This trailer's packed with everything you have at your disposal in First Light, from helpful tech like the Q-lens for highlighting key info, to Bond's infiltration techniques (both sneaky and explosive).
Gameplay trailer
If you don't feel like sitting through a 30 minute presentation, IO have handily condensed all of the gameplay shown off during Sony's September State of Play (plus a little more) into a more digestible two minute trailer. It's got guns, it's got car chases, it's got gadgets, and it's got Bond disobeying orders—yep, sure ticks all the boxes of a Bond adventure.
Exclusive interview with IO Interactive
We visited IO Interactive for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the development of 007 First Light. Check it out!
007 First Light preview
After 3 hours with 007 First Light, Joshua Wolens was left feeling like it was "a modest, sometimes archaic third-person action game with some neat but underdeveloped ideas. And a very annoying protagonist." As a lover of the modern Bond films myself, it's not a stretch to see how playing him could be insufferable. He's kind of a walking red flag. Good thing he knows how to throw a cinematic punch.
Josh went on to say that while First Light does tick the sandbox criteria, it feels like a limited sandbox. The infiltration techniques, and tools used, are lesser than Agent 47's because they are only one way you can approach a level now. It's more about discovering pre-made paths than getting creative.
007 First Light story and setting details
Here's everything we know about 007 First Light's story:
- 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 (played by The Walking Dead’s Lennie James), 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 England, Slovakia, and what looks like Vietnam.
- Familiar characters from the franchise will return, including M, Q (who is an older gentleman), and Moneypenny.
- Moneypenny is a field analyst in First Light, so we'll be hearing her a lot via comms while on the job.
- At some point Bond and Greenway will be tied up in a pit full of crocodiles.
- Lenny Kravitz is playing a villain called Bawma, and he seemed to be the owner of that crocodile pit.
- Bond teams up with Agent Charlotte Roth in London, with Roth an agent of DGSE, France's MI6 equivalent. She's also after 009.
- Gemma Chan is voicing (and lending her likeness to) Selina Tan, MI6’s Head of Tactical Simulation. She is an original First Light character, who oversees a program designed to test and refine the skills of MI6’s most promising recruits.
- Bond's a bit funnier than usual? I guess that's what young Bond might have been like before his body count reached "are we the baddies?" level.
Just be careful in game spaces for First Light until release, as there are some major story spoilers out there, including footage of the entire ending of the game. This leak came from a security flaw within the Indonesian Game Rating System, as the footage was submitted for review with them.
007 First Light gameplay features
007 First Light is a third-person stealth action game that seems to lean 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 specialty 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'."
So how does this practically work? Well, thanks to the extended gameplay footage and a PlayStation blog post, we know there are four distinct ways you can approach a situation in First Light:
- Spycraft: this is your toolkit for the quieter side of the job. You can eavesdrop on conversations for intelligence, lift a keycard from a distracted guard’s pocket, or piece together clues from environmental details others might overlook. Every bit of information can open a shortcut or give you a way around a challenge, or a crowded security room.
- Instinct: Bond’s natural aptitude in gameplay form, reflecting his quick thinking and adaptability. Instinct is a limited resource that will fill itself as you take down enemies, complete objectives, and perform other activities. You can use it to lure a guard toward you for a silent takedown, bluff your way past someone who’s getting suspicious, or give you a bit more time to take the perfect shot during a firefight. (AKA it acts as a slow-mo bullet time mode during a fight.)
- Gadgets: These devices from Q Branch are an essential part of your toolkit, giving you plenty of possibilities to tackle each situation you face. You might hack a camera system to clear a path, cut through a locked door with a laser, or distract a guard long enough to slip by. As you progress through the missions, you will unlock more gadgets. If you want to see the watch gadget in action for yourself, and don't mind the footage coming from an Omega watch brand collaboration of all things, then this watch gadget gameplay video has you covered.
- Combat: You’ll swap between gunplay and up-close brawls. In tight spaces, Bond can throw an opponent over a railing, smash them against a wall, disarm them in one smooth motion, or use the nearest object to incapacitate them. Melee skills include parries, throws, and takedowns, which are "designed to look cinematic but still feel responsive in your hands."
There's also some neat looking car chases to look forward to in between the more flexible missions. Some of which might take part in the new Aston Martin Valhalla supercar. There's only 999 of these available in real life, but you too can live it up, billionaire-style, when you use it as Bond. Other iconic Bond vehicles have also been promised, including the Aston Martin DBS.
If you want an extended look at what the gameplay in First Light is like, below is 30 minutes of pure Bond.
The first dev diary for First Light and the second dev diary went into even more details about what you can and can't do as Bond. Important details revealed in this video include:
- An NPC's job can determine whether you can fool them or not, as the more important they are, the more information they have
- You can de-escalate situations easier than you could in IOI's Hitman, to reflect Bond as a character. Such as using Bond's bluff mechanic
- There are more ways to approach a situation in First Light than in Hitman
- You can shoot enemies in the feet to down them, which counts as a way to deal with them without killing
Who's doing the theme song for First Light?
Lana Del Rey did the theme song for 007: First Light, and it's out now! You can listen to it yourself above and judge whether or not it's banger material or not. I think it sits squarely in the "this is a pretty good Bond bop" tier, but what do I know? I hated Sam Smith's "Writing's On the Wall" track for Spectre, and I'm only finding out today that it won a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Smdh.
"First Light" is technically Del Ray's second Bond theme, as her song ("24") was pushed aside in favor of Sam Smith's for Spectre. Smdh again.
007 First Light PC specs
Uh, ignore those first PC specs IO Interactive revealed, turns out it did an oopsie and posted the wrong ones with some "inconsistencies," thanks to an internal miscommunication error.
These are the real PC system requirements for 007 First Light:
Minimum
- OS: MICROSOFT WINDOWS 10/11, 64-BIT
- PROCESSOR: INTEL CORE i5 9500, AMD RYZEN 5 3500
- MEMORY: 16 GB RAM
- GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GFORCE GTX 1660, AMD RX 5700, INTEL DISCRETE GPU EQUIVALENT
- STORAGE: 80 GB available space
Recommended
- OS: MICROSOFT WINDOWS 10/11, 64-BIT
- PROCESSOR: INTEL CORE i5 13500, AMD RYZEN 5 7600
- MEMORY: 16 GB RAM
- GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060 TI, AMD RX 6700 XT, INTEL DISCRETE GPU EQUIVALENT
- STORAGE: 80 GB available space
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.
