If it hasn't already been said enough, IO Interactive's pairing with James Bond for 007: First Light is truly a match made in heaven. That's an overused phrase, sure, but one that is utterly deserved for the studio: it's spent decades perfecting the spy fantasy with the Hitman games—which are a mainstay on our annual Top 100 list at this point—and now it gets the chance to put all of that work into one of the biggest and coolest spies to exist.
IOI has been keeping development firmly under the hood… up until now. Last week saw the very first trailer for the game drop along with the game's name. But wait, there's more! If you caught our very own PC Gaming Show 2025, you'll have seen that PC Gamer got a chance to jet off to IOI's headquarters in Copenhagen and chat with some of the biggest names behind the development of 007: First Light.
The vibe inside the IOI office was one of overwhelming excitement to finally unleash the studio's younger, greener Bond upon the world. One that can't quite be compared to any one movie or novel variant. "It was very important to us from early on that we didn't want to synthesise Bond," narrative and cinematic director Martin Emborg said. "We didn't want to cherry-pick qualities from different aspects of stories or whatever. We wanted to make something that was fully original."
CEO Hakan Abrak said that creating an IOI-certified Bond "has been both exciting and extremely challenging," adding: "He's very true to his north star and his values. The story is very much 'When you meet the harsh, political, dangerous world out there, how does a young man fare whilst still retaining his values?'"
We see these little facets of Bond from the latest trailer: small glints of the man we know when he throws a flirtatious comment, but also the rashness that comes with youth and inexperience. Which is probably how he ended up above those alligators, I reckon.
That young recklessness is a nice change for IOI, which has spent so many years working with Hitman's Agent 47, a character who's considerably more of a blank slate. "If Hitman is a single-minded killer and basically the bad guy of the game, Bond is the hero," franchise art director Rasmus Poulsen said. "That means we are much more focused on his journey as a character and we are much more focused on saving the world."
Comparisons between the two games are inevitable: They both play into the agent/spy fantasy, and I'd honestly be more surprised if IOI wasn't folding its Hitman DNA into the very foundations of 007: First Light.
Abrak said 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 that's not all: "On top of that, we as a studio and a team have evolved a lot to bring top-class action, spectacle moments and situations, all interactive. The situations you get into are absolutely wild. That's because that's the 360 experience our fans deserve and expect from a Bond experience," he said.
"Having worked on Hitman on-and-off for 20 years, this is a culmination of all that work," Poulsen said. "All that skill, all that practice coming together and finally seeing the ultimate spy fantasy come to life."
Quite frankly, it all sounds incredibly bloody exciting. Not only does IOI seem jazzed to finally say more about this game, I'm ridiculously hyped to hear about it and all of the hard work that's going on behind the scenes.
If you didn't get a chance to catch IOI's appearance at the PC Gaming Show, make sure to strap on your Omega watch, hop into your Aston Martin and drive straight over to the PC Gamer YouTube channel to catch up and peep some great insight into the studio's next venture.
Check out every game, trailer, and announcement in the PC Gaming Show 2025
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