The question I’ve asked myself while waiting for my first taste of 007 First Light has been this: is this going to be a Bond game with Hitman-like levels, drawing on IO’s experience with lethal sandboxes? Or is this going to be a classic action-adventure game, mixing combat and platforming with wild set pieces? The answer, I’ve recently found out, is: both.

After a hands-off demo at gamescom, 007 First Light has shot up to the heights of my most anticipated games. Combining the thoughtful, self-directed stealth of IO’s recent triumphs with some incredible action scenes, this is a game that sees a studio recognizing its own strengths, and then stretching them so much further.

Doing the Fieldwork

Across around 40 minutes, I see sections of a lengthy, multi-stage mission from relatively early in the game. A young James Bond has been sent into the Carpathian Mountains – along with a squad of other budding spies – to attend the World Chess Championship, in the hope of discovering and detaining a rogue 009. Much to Bond’s chagrin, however, he’s been assigned only as the getaway driver.

In set-up, it’s pure Hitman – the lavish hotel you visit is packed with well-dressed, chattering NPCs, and your goal is tantalizingly vague, giving plenty of scope for you interpret the mission in your own way. But the presence of Bond lends it a different feeling – in a Hitman game, you’re empowered to go lethal as early as you’d like, its murkier worldview allowing you to act with impunity. Bond, however, has to abide (at least somewhat) by the rules.

In 007 First Light, your License to Kill is an actual game mechanic – you’re only allowed to employ lethal force if an enemy tries to take you down first. As a result, the opening parts of this mission force you to engage with the subtler elements of international espionage. After noticing some suspicious activity from a bellhop while waiting by the car (a gorgeous green Jaguar, naturally), Bond begins searching for a way into the hotel.

We see him try to talk his way in through the front door (with a dialogue choice-based conversation system), before attempting a stealthier route. First, he uses his Q-Lab branded watch (which is also your minimap) to identify opportunities, and spots a sprinkler system that can be used to distract a guard. Using stealth, he creeps into a staff-only area, waits for the guard to hit a less visible corner, and uses his phone to fire an incapacitating dart – I’m very excited to see how far the gadgets go here.

Collecting a dropped lighter, he then makes his way to a gardener’s wheelbarrow, and surreptitiously sets the leaf litter inside on fire, causing a larger distraction, before using a parkour system to scale the hotel and sneak in through a window. In a beautifully Bond-y touch, he startles some hotel staff as he climbs in, and casually explains that he’s testing the security while strolling by.

IO assures us that this is just a single way of many to gain entrance to the building and, based on their history with Hitman, that feels very clear – this is a huge playspace, and I can only imagine there are many other routes that could be taken to begin the mission proper. Speaking of the building, IO is employing all its Hitman tricks to make it feel like a real place here, too – every detail feels meticulously designed to both look good, while offering true opportunities for play. Once we reach the Chess Championship, it’s a true wow moment, with some incredible lighting playing over the frankly enormous crowd of NPCs watching on in a retooled ballroom.

But, as I’ve alluded to, this is only half of the experience.

Becoming a Blockbuster

The demo skips forward at this point to show us the other side of the First Light coin. When we rejoin Bond, 009 has been discovered but escapes in a car – which begins a series of wild set pieces.

Bond commandeers a guest’s vehicle (this time, a vintage Aston Martin), and we’re plunged into a car chase down the mountains. It’s pure Bond movie – the player is surrounded by gorgeous scenery, and forced into dangerous shortcuts by scripted moments of high action. At one point, Bond’s forced to ramp off of a car truck, and the camera offers a full, filmic moment of slow-mo to give you the full effect.

Reaching the end of the chase, 009 has decamped into a nearby airfield, rammed with henchmen, and so begins a true combat sequence. As a first goon raises their weapon, time slows down and “License to Kill” flashes up on screen, and all hell breaks loose.

First Light looks to be combining ranged and melee combat seamlessly, with a brutality clearly drawing on the Daniel Craig era of the films. This younger, more off-the-rails Bond picks up and swaps weapons with abandon – and when he runs out of ammo, he simply throws it at his nearest opponent, enters hand-to-hand mode, disarms them and, hey presto, a new gun to use.

There’s a real emphasis on movie-like fun over painstaking reality here. At one point, IO shows off a move where Bond charges into an armored enemy, tackles them off of a gantry, and rides their body to the ground, before charging back into the fray at ground level. Parked cars seem to explode incredibly easily after a few gunshots, transforming what could be tedious cover shooting into something more like a firework-filled shooting gallery.

Eventually, 009 gets onto a cargo plane, which begins taxiing up the runway – so Bond steals an airport stair car, drives it alongside the plane, then climbs up the stairs onto the wing. A short melee sequence on the back of a moving plane sees him chucking enemies into the wind, before he climbs inside just as it takes off.

At this point, I was sure we were going to see a “predator stealth” section, with Bond silently dispatching enemies across the plane. Instead, it was so much less predictable. Bond can hack the plane’s controls, and what we get is a sequence of combat where – at any time – the player can violently bank the plane left and right, sending everything (enemies, cargo, entire vehicles) lurching from side to side, clearing a path. It’s a set piece that promises so much – First Light won’t simply reuse a set of game mechanics that repeat from mission to mission, but seems to aim to give you a more movie-like sense of pacing, changing based on what’s most entertaining for a given moment.

To finish our demonstration, Bond realizes he won’t be able to catch 009 – instead turning his watch to tracker mode, attaching it to the hull, and jumping out of the plane. The only issue? He doesn’t have a parachute. Instead, we get a skydiving section where he catches up to bailed out enemies, fights them in mid-air, and uses their parachute to his own ends.

Taken altogether, it’s a ludicrously enjoyable sequence, one that shows IO understands its mission intimately. Yes, this is a studio with a background in a specific kind of game, but taking on the 007 license allows them to have their cake and eat it. The fact that First Light will include the kinds of open-ended sandbox spy missions we’d expect from this studio is deeply exciting – but that they’re so willing to stitch them together with movie-indebted action set pieces is the true mark that they’re going further with their ambitions than ever before.

007 First Light comes to Xbox Series X|S on March 27, 2026.