007 First Light Devs Didn’t Want To Make A Game Just About Shooting

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Earlier this month, Hitman developer IO Interactive officially unveiled 007 First Light, the first James Bond game for consoles since 007 Legends in 2012. The first trailer for the game revealed a new origin story for Bond and the action that goes with it. However, IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak recently stressed that 007 First Light is going to be about more than just James Bond shooting his way out of trouble.

“We don’t want to make a game where it’s only about shooting and running,” Abrak told IGN. “It’s also about delivering that fantasy for a Bond where he can traverse in social spaces and speak to people and figure out in creative ways how to solve the obstacles in front of him. So there’s a lot that we know from from Hitman: World of Assassination that we brought into that, but James Bond is a very different experience than Hitman.”

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Now Playing: How IO Interactive Is Making James Bond Different From Hitman

Abrak went on to explain that IO’s game engine was modified to allow the team to create the “spectacular action set pieces” that James Bond is known for. That includes hand-to-hand combat as well as driving sequences, which are a staple of almost of every Bond film and video game.

While this version of Bond isn’t based on any of the actors from the movies, Abrak suggested that the character still has his roots in Ian Fleming’s original character, including the scar on his face. The game will chronicle Bond’s road to becoming a double-0 agent, which was only briefly touched upon in the 2006 adaptation of Casino Royale.

Astute fans successfully identified Dexter: Original Sin star Patrick Gibson as IO’s James Bond even before the company confirmed his casting. 007 First Light won’t arrive on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC until 2026. In the meantime, IO is bringing in Casino Royale’s Mads Mikkelsen to reprise his role as Le Chiffre for an Elusive Target mission in Hitman: World of Assassination. That mission is available now.

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