007 First Light

I went into 007 First Light with the same mixture of skepticism and childish glee most of us do when a legendary franchise gets a fresh take. IO Interactive — the Hitman folks — reimagines a young James Bond as a trainee MI6 agent and serves up a roughly 20‑hour campaign that feels like an action movie you can control. There’s real charm here: a punchy melee system, a playful bluff mechanic and gadgets that actually make choices feel meaningful. But the game also trips over a few technical and design stumbles that keep it from being flawless.

Becoming 007: Training, Tricks and Takedowns

The core loop is a tidy mixture of investigation, social engineering, gadgets and punchy close‑quarters combat. Early on you spend more time observing patrols, eavesdropping and bluffing your way through situations than mowing down rooms, and that emphasis on improvisation makes Bond feel distinct from Agent 47. When things go loud the shooting is serviceable and the "instinct" slow‑motion moments let you land satisfying headshots, but the real star for me was the melee: heavy, visceral exchanges, environmental takedowns and the little comic brutality of throwing a bad guy through a cocktail table. Loadouts are intentionally constrained — you can’t carry everything — which forces choices, though sometimes it feels more restrictive than tactical.

Gadgets, Bluffing and the Q‑Branch Toybox

Gadgets are the game’s playground: Q’s inventions let you tamper with phones, distract guards, blind cameras or turn the environment into a weapon. The bluff system is charming — fake a role, toss one line of dialogue and watch conversations ripple — and it frequently produces amusing, emergent lines of banter. TacSim mode borrows Hitman’s challenge DNA and promises post‑launch longevity; I enjoyed the smaller, arcade‑style missions almost as much as the main campaign. The Deluxe extras, outfit/weapon skins and the Year One roadmap (new TacSims, photomode, gadgets) are clearly meant to expand replay value. Still, some gadgets feel best‑in‑class while others are filler, so you’ll end up favoring a tiny toolbox of go‑to toys.

Light, Sound and the Engine's Mood

Visually the game is polished in a cinematic way: glossy nightclubs, sunwashed deserts and tight interiors all look excellent, and the soundtrack often nails that Bond‑suspense mood. IOI shipped with DLSS and frame‑generation support and teases path tracing later in the year — PC options are robust, but some users reported unstable frame generation and stutters in explosive scenes. Audio is lovely overall, though a handful of players saw crackling or weak SFX; DualSense haptics worked for many but some reported quirks that needed debugging. Accessibility and PC menus are comprehensive but occasionally confusing (aim assist toggles and collectible tracking could use polish). Overall presentation sells the fantasy, even when the engine shows strain during dense firefights.

007 First Light is a confident, often thrilling reinvention of Bond that gets the tone, gadgets and spectacle right more often than it doesn’t. It’s not the open‑ended Hitman successor some hoped for — and launch‑day bugs and interface oddities temper the shine — but for fans of cinematic action, gadget play and a well‑acted origin story it’s a very worthy trip. Buy it if you want a polished Bond adventure; Hitman purists should wait for updates or discounts.