5 Things We Learned About the Next ‘James Bond’ Game: 007 First Light

At a time that we’ve been waiting patiently for any news of when everybody’s favourite secret agent will be making his next appearance on the big screen, Sony just went ahead and dropped a trailer for a brand new James Bond game.

007 First Light is a new take on the often reinterpreted character, clearly eschewing the book-and-film series’ various canons to present a new origin story: one unique to this much younger version of Bond. Created by IO Interactive, the people behind the incredible Hitman series, 007 First Light looks particularly promising in a industry finally taking licensed games seriously.

If you haven’t seen the first trailer for the new James Bond game, check it out below.

Looks pretty good, right? Well, there’s a bit more packed in that 3 minutes that we can tease out with a bit of digging: so here’s 5 things we learned about 007 First Light.

1. Bond has a Backstory

As a rule, Bond’s backstory is usually pretty muddy. He’s a secret agent, after all, and tends to keep his history pretty close to his chest. First Light seems to be taking things pretty closely from Ian Fleming’s original novels, with Bond joining the secret service following the deaths of his parents after a mountaineering accident.

After a few years in the Navy, and a few too many run-ins with authority, Bond is headhunted by MI6 and begins his journey to become the infamous, charismatic agent we all know today. In First Light, we’ll see that process play out and, in some ways, will get to determine what kind of agent this version of Bond is.

2. Free-Form Gameplay takes Centre Stage…

Now, this may not be a surprise to those of us in the know given IO Interactive’s pedigree, but 007 First Light is going to feature open-ended, mission-based gameplay. It’s a third-person action-adventure, likely in a similar style to IO’s Hitman series, where you’ll be dropped into “breathtaking locations” with a goal to accomplish, and decide yourself how you’ll proceed.

Is your James Bond a silent assassin, keeping to shadows and eliminating guards as they pass his hiding place? Or is he more of a ‘shoot first, sneak later’ kind of agent? Or, does he aim to keep the body-count low, using gadgets to infiltrate or his natural British charm to bluff his way past potential encounters?

I’d honestly think it was just the kind of overpromising many developers are prone to do at a game’s announcement, only to reel it back in as you get closer to release, but this is IO Interactive. If any developer can nail the kind of free-form infiltrating a game like this requires, it’s the team behind Hitman. I’m very hopeful.

3. …but Narrative is a Star Player

A focus on gameplay doesn’t mean the game’s story gets thrown to the wayside, though. In First Light, Bond will be tracking down a rogue agent—009, specifically—who, according to MI6, is a master manipulator with an end-game they likely won’t see coming.

Why send an unproven, unreliable wannabe agent to track down a skilled defector? If 009 is as intelligent as MI6 thinks, they probably know everything the other 00 agents will do to track them down and can avoid them, but Bond is an unknown, a wild card, and likely MI6’s best chance at tracking its former agent down.

While we don’t have much idea of what to expect from the story of 007 First Light, it’s clearly going to be a particularly cinematic one, with IO Interactive likely relishing the chance to write a more charismatic and talkative character (no shade to Agent 47, of course).

4. There are a Ton of Classic Bond Goodies in the Trailer

Bond has always been tied to real-world products, from his signature appreciation of cars and watches (especially when they’re deadly weapons in their own right) to his love of Vesper Martinis, shaken, not stirred.

In the 3 minutes and 14 seconds of trailer footage seen so far, we spotted a whole bunch of Omega watches, including an unreleased model, as well as the fact the man himself is driving an Aston Martin again—probably the Aston Martin V8.

These are all undoubtedly geared up to the extreme by Q, with Bond seen accidentally kicking off a hidden thruster on a nearby dirt bike with the press of a button, and are likely to play a key role in the new agent’s success in tracking down his mark. I honestly can’t wait to cruise around in a Bond car, especially if there are hidden machine guns or something.

5. It’s Coming in 2026

While we’ll be learning more about the game in the coming months, we know it’s set for launch in 2026. And, while it was shown at PlayStation’s State of Play, and all the focus was on its launch on Sony’s platform, 007 First Light is also coming to Xbox Series S/X, Steam, Epic Games, and the newly-released Nintendo Switch 2.

2026 is already looking pretty stacked for great games, with The Duskbloods, Saros, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Nioh 3, Fable, and, obviously, Grand Theft Auto 6 set to launch (not to mention a potential Elder Scrolls 6). Now, we’ve got one more reason to look forward to next year.