007 First Light is charting a new course for James Bond in video games, leaning heavily into physical brawling combat rather than the series' traditional firearm focus. The game serves as an origin story for Bond, portraying him as a younger operative before earning his double-0 status, a decision that directly influenced its combat design.
"Our younger version of Bond hasn't gone cold yet, so that leant us towards this idea that the game shouldn't be where you walk into a room, see someone, and you shoot them in the back of the head," explained senior combat designer Tom Marcham. "We also knew that Bond is quite a direct force, and not necessarily the guy you send to sneak in entirely silently. He's very indiscrete in his methods, and more of a blunt tool that causes some destruction around him. That led us down the route of not killing but having lots of non-lethal fist-fighting."
Marcham, who has prior experience in shooter development from studios like Creative Assembly and Splash Damage, noted that melee combat has been largely absent from Bond games, with 2005's From Russia With Love being a notable exception. For inspiration, the team looked to Daniel Craig's portrayal of Bond, citing a fighting style that mixes street-level brawling with military martial arts.
"We used similar stuff to the Daniel Craig movies, which is a mix of a boxing style based on what you might have learned if you were the kind of guy to get into a fight on the street," Marcham said. "We had this idea that our Bond has probably got some slightly repressed anger issues from being an orphan and those would probably come out on a night out or two where he's throwing fists. Then we mixed that with the kind of military martial arts you would learn from the SAS [Special Air Services], which is fairly brutal, very effective, and professional-looking."
Inspired by Craig's Bond, the developers aimed to imbue 007 First Light with a sense of vulnerability, making the character feel more mortal and grounded. This translates into combat that is improvisational and makes use of the environment. "There is a messiness to the fight that gives us this kind of grounded element where he does get beaten down a lot and he seems very mortal in a lot of it--he's not infallible," Marcham added. "That ended up being an element we brought into the combat. It's very improvisational, you're using the environment, and those elements basically helped us build something quite unique."
To ensure the game appealed to a broad audience, from hardcore gamers to casual fans, the team drew inspiration from a range of titles. Blockbuster hits like Uncharted and Batman: Arkham Asylum, particularly its counter-parry system, served as important templates. More hardcore influences included the martial arts game Sifu and the cult favorite Sleeping Dogs, which specifically informed the game's environmental takedowns and close-quarters enemy grappling.
While the game prioritizes brawling, it can escalate into a shooter if the situation demands. The developers worked to ensure a seamless transition between melee and ranged combat, even drawing inspiration from the movement-focused shooter Vanquish. "We actually looked at Vanquish, a movement-based shooter where you have rockets propelling from the back of your legs," Marcham stated. "While we took only a little bit, we tried to get as much of the general idea of flowing from melee to ranged combat and how that could feel."
Environments in 007 First Light are designed to dynamically change based on the player's approach. For instance, a prolonged fistfight might lead to enemies drawing firearms, transforming a close-quarters encounter into an extended shootout. "One of my favourites is in Mauritania, in an area called Logistics B, which is a very mundane name for a very extreme space," Marcham shared. "If you play through it, you can have it play like a very long stealth encounter, but if you go into a firefight, it's suddenly this huge long-range firefight with all kinds of chaos going on."
The transition between stealth and combat was the most significant design challenge. However, unlike in games where escalating to combat often results in a reload, 007 First Light is designed to make such transitions feel like part of the intended experience. "It's been quite cool seeing a lot of YouTubers when they fail stealth and they start throwing punches--they don't seem upset when they 'fail,' they seem like they're ready to have a good time," Marcham observed. "I think that was a success that we worked really hard for and I'm glad that it's gone down pretty well."
The game's training montage, set in Malta, has been particularly well-received. Marcham described the extensive effort involved in its creation, noting its initial difficulty to implement despite its impressive presentation. "It was an unbelievable amount of work involved," he recalled. "The first version of it I saw was all blockout models and placeholder music, and when you played it, you were like, this is amazing. Why has no one ever done this before? And then we found out later why no one had done it before because it was incredibly difficult to do! But then we made it, and it's one of those things that when we saw it, we were like, yeah, we're making a James Bond game. And it was still just part of the tutorial."
While this grounded Bond may lack the extravagant gadgets of some iterations, it does feature items like the missile pen. The developers intentionally scaled back on excessive gadgets to maintain the game's tone. "We had things in it that we thought were going to be cool, but when you play it, it turns out that it's not cool, it just looks silly," Marcham said. "There was definitely a point where it felt like he'd become Mr. Gadget, and we had to tune it back."
IO Interactive has outlined a roadmap for 007 First Light that includes updates for at least a year, featuring expansions to the TacSim mode, a New Game Plus option, and a story expansion with the character Bawma. "I think we'll continue to expand with ways you can replay encounters and play about with the ruleset so that we can get more out of the campaign that we have," Marcham stated. "We're still messing around with the gadget side of stuff. I think there's a whole world that you can explore with who Bond is and why he uses gadgets."
With a Nintendo Switch 2 version planned, the future of the Bond franchise in gaming remains uncertain, especially following Amazon's acquisition of the Bond rights and recent layoffs at IO Interactive. Nevertheless, the reception of 007 First Light suggests significant potential for this younger, more physically oriented iteration of the iconic spy.