Intro: The Curse of the Movie Licensed Game
Movie licensed games are often synonymous with one word – mediocrity.
Everything from the Goonies to Lord of the Rings have had their own video games centered around the plots of the movies they are based on. Some choose to forego the stories of the movies they are based on and tell their tales while others let the player experience the events just as they occur on the silver screen. Either way, the games that come out of this process are usually nothing more than a shadow of the stories they are based on.
More than anything, these titles are guilty of the worst tropes that have plagued the gaming industry since its inception – repetitive gameplay and level designs, minimal production quality, and more than anything a lack of the aspects that made these movies special. This is not to say there aren’t some great games hidden amongst the dozens of cheap imitators chasing a quick buck. The most prominent tales of success that come to mind are games like Peter Jackson’s King Kong released on the PS2 and the more recent Robocop: Rogue City. Both felt like they built off the source material instead of cheaply mimicking it.
But therein lies the greatest question of all in regards to games based on movies – do they ever succeed as their own story? 007 First Light seems intent on doing just that. Let us dive in to my review of the newest entry in James Bond’s extensive catalog.
The World of Bond: The Beginning of the Legend
To say that this is Mr. Bond’s first foray into the video game space would be one of the biggest lies put to paper. If anything, James Bond has been a staple in the gaming landscape since the Atari back in 1983. We have seen everything from standalone entries to movie tie-ins and everything in between, but to say Mr. Bond has been quiet this past decade would be an understatement.
Since 2013 there has only been two mainline games centered around the 007 persona. By comparison, there were more than eight titles released in the time between 2002 and 2012. The fact is many of us grew up with Goldeneye and the early PS2 titles focused on the titular British spy, and most have been disappointed with the lack of anything over the past decade. Well, I am here to say that not only is 007 First Light one of the best entries in the 007 catalog, but it is an action game that deserves to stand amongst the greats.
The basis of 007 First Light from a story perspective is you are playing as a new, more modern version of James Bond as he tries to fill the mantle of 007. The story has you traveling around the world with Bond and the usual heavy hitters, from the eccentric Q and his gadgets to M and her struggle to keep Bond on a leash. More than a few fresh faces also make an appearance throughout your journey and people on both sides of the conflict each present their own personas and goals that feel right at home in a spy thriller. Every character trope that is present in any modern James Bond movie, from double agents to charismatic villains, is here and each one takes over the scene anytime they slink out from the shadows. Each person feels perfect in the world and there is rarely any wasted potential with the main cast and the side characters who inhabit the story.
Where the story gets interesting is how it presents Bond. We are not playing from the perspective of an already established 007 agent but rather someone who is trying to prove himself as a worthy candidate of the title. This approach to the usual formula is one that feels unique compared to other iterations of James Bond and it is what makes the game feel as good as it does. First Light’s Bond is a greenhorn to the level of madness the game’s story puts him through and his sly thinking on the fly, through your choices during the dozens of branching dialogue options, shows how confident he becomes in his abilities by the end of the story. The 007 title is after all reserved for the best, and by the end of the campaign you will feel like a secret agent worthy of all that and more.
First Light presents itself as a homage to the source material rather than a cheap rip-off with the name slapped on top. If anything, the way First Light’s story is presented is on par with any of the 007 movies that I have seen in recent memory. The game feels like you are being put through the same trials and tribulations that Bond would have gone through in any of the movies and the way it is told is damn near perfect from a pacing perspective.
Your journey as James Bond has you traveling around the globe as you try to stop the usual world ending bad guys from doing their usual song and dance (With the power of AI being the main focus here), but it does it in a way that gives every mission stakes that feel like they matter as far as pushing the narrative forward. Each one of the ten missions you go out on each have their own vistas to explore and goals that feel like they were extracted straight from Ian Fleming’s novels. You have everything from infiltrating an art show to find a person of interest to sneaking your way through a shady open-air weapons market looking for a rogue agent and dare I say not a single one felt weaker than the others.
Even the beginning of the game presents Bond’s initial training as an interactive gameplay experience that paces itself in a way that does not drag for too long in those first few hours. Sure the first two missions feel a little slower compared to the more action focused aspects of the game where things open up as far as your freedom of choice, but it teaches you the various game systems in a way that makes sense to the story while also pushing James towards that coveted 007 title.
Honestly, I have no qualms about the story as a whole. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this new Bond and the way his story is presented to us is exactly the kind of spark that was needed to revitalize hope in us seeing more of the 007 name in the modern gaming landscape. While many of us were hesitant that they could pull it off, myself included, I am pleased to announce that this is one of the best 007 stories in recent memory and the whole experience really does stand out as the start of what I hope is a long and memorable trilogy or at the very least a sequel.
The Queen’s Arsenal: Guns, Gadgets, and Fists, Oh my!
From a gameplay perspective, First Light is a title that seems intent on living in the shadows of some of the greatest action-adventure games of the PS3 era. From a baseline perspective it plays as a mix between the hectic combat of games like the Uncharted series while somehow maintaining the precision and creativity of the Hitman trilogy.
Though the basics of it are extremely simple to explain on paper, the missions and how they are designed give you as the player more than enough ways to approach every situation that is put in front of you. 007 is after all not a man set on murdering everyone in his path like John Wick, and throughout your time as Bond you will have more than a few situations where you are just an observer trying to find out whatever the mission is asking of you. Just like we talked about in the section above, the map variety is impressive from not only a graphical perspective, but also how well it sells the idea that these missions can be approached as you wish.
Beyond the ability to attack these intricate playgrounds as you see fit, the gameplay can be simply as an extremely refined version of a standard third person action game. You are able to sneak and run around as you see fit, and the movement gives you a host of options when it comes to staying hidden or running towards the action. When you tie this system of slinking around in the shadows with the gunplay and gadget system, you have what amounts to one of the best 007 games that has been published in over a decade.
The gunplay is a basic third person system that prioritizes accuracy over raw power and IO Interactive has once again proved that they are more than capable of creating gameplay systems that perfectly encapsulates how the perspective is supposed to feel in action. Using the same movement systems we talked about a few seconds ago, you are able to jump in and out of cover with minimal effort and easily headshot any enemy that stands between you and your mission’s goals. There is a decent variety of weapons at your disposal from standard pistols and shotguns to assault rifles and sniper rifles and each one feels unique as far as what situation it excels in. Pistols excel against soft targets like heads and limbs while the bigger calibers allow you to punch through armored targets without wasting too much ammo.
Some of the combat sections can be a bit difficult if you do choose to go the gung-ho route, but for most of my deaths it was user error, not the game punishing me for using guns over a more pacifist approach. Overall, the gunplay comes off as one of the most satisfying aspects of the entire experience simply because your reflexes are always improving as Bond gets more comfortable with himself, further reiterating the point that you are playing through the eyes of someone who is trying to fill these seemingly unfillable shoes.
The other aspects of the combat worth mentioning are the gadgets and the melee combat. Now I’ll be the first to admit that I usually forgo melee combat entirely if I can in favor of sending lead down range, but the melee combat in First Light is perfect in every aspect. From counters to the hits themselves, nothing feels wasted. The clearest comparison is the Uncharted series, but I will admit the melee combat in First Light is just straight up satisfying to use and feels like its own system as opposed to feeling like the usual action-adventure game tack on. Every punch you land and counter you execute on the enemies you are put up against has a certain sense of power behind them and it makes every hit feel like it does real damage to the enemies in front of you. Add in the fact that you can use the environment to slam enemies into walls and other pieces of furniture and you have what amounts to a WWE styled brawl every time the fists come out. That leaves us with one last thing to discuss – the gadgets.
Now anyone worth their salt knows that the gadgets are what makes 007 the international man of mystery and what ultimately gives him an advantage over most of his adversaries. I am pleased to announce that not only are most of the gadgets extremely useful and terribly fun to use, but each one gives you a range of options on how you want to trick and deceive the AI. Is it fun because the AI is more than a little derpy at times? Maybe, but hey, I died more than times then I can count and can confidently reassure you that they pose a decent challenge once the training wheels fall off. Back to the gadgets, you have a wide variety of tools at your disposal all of which start with a new feature called Q-Vision, a scanning system that lets you track enemies and interact with the dozens of objects scattered around each level.
You can interact with these same objects and cause distractions with everything from random pieces of standard technology to gas lines and each one serves a purpose in allowing you to attack each situation as you see fit. I am sure I sound like a broken record at this point, but it all just works in a hugely entertaining ‘early 2010’s’ sort of way. There is rarely any specific playstyle forced upon you throughout your journey as Bond and when the spy thriller morphs into an all-out massacre, you will still find yourself feeling like the most capable version of Bond we have seen in years.
Final Thoughts: A Sleeper GOTY Contender
007 First Light isn’t just a great Bond game – it’s one of the best action-adventure games released this decade. Witnessing the birth of the 007 legend through Bond’s eyes from the beginning is a tale that was long overdue for a video game adaptation, and IO Interactive has pulled it off flawlessly. Tie this origin story in with gameplay systems that prioritize the precision and creativity that 007 is known for, and you have what amounts to one of the best iterations of James Bond that we have seen in recent memory.
007: First Light was reviewed on PS5. The game was released on May 27th, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version coming later this summer.
