Platforms: PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2
The wait for a cinematic successor to Daniel Craig’s James Bond has been long, but the gap between 007 games has been even longer. After a 14 year hiatus, Hitman developers IO Interactive have accepted the mission, bringing the famed Secret Service agent back to gaming with an original story that’s entirely divorced from its movie counterparts. At its best, it makes for a thrilling action-espionage tale, though some refinements in certain areas would not go amiss.
It helps that IOI has chosen to focus on Bond’s origins, a hitherto unexplored period in his onscreen life that covers his recruitment into MI6, his training, and his first globetrotting mission across approximately 14 hours. Once the latter truly kicks off, the escalating narrative is at once Bondian and slightly convoluted, with too much talk of quantum computers and AI that threatens to encroach on the fun. And while the true villains don’t leave much of an impression, the level design is almost always strong, while the transitions between stealth and climbing segments, all-guns-blazing battles, and cinematic cutscenes are seamless. Hitman meets Uncharted may sound reductive, but it’s also accurate (and complimentary).
Gameplay leads into thrilling cutscenes that wouldn’t feel out of place on a big screen.
When it does come time to take enemies down, there are multiple ways to get creative and achieve objectives, whether you opt for stealth and guile or gunplay and gadgetry. The forward momentum the game actively encourages is when things really click into place, with the gunplay feeling especially slick and impactful. The melee combat is less smooth; while the use of environments to aid you mid-beatdown is wonderfully satisfying and makes fights feel more dynamic, the counter system – especially with large groups of enemies – is at times sluggish and clunky. The gameplay often leads into some thrilling cutscenes that wouldn’t feel out of place on a big screen, and there are a handful of moments that make you feel like Bond too, from a cool and chaotic plane sequence to a mission that has you driving a bin lorry through Kensington.
Patrick Gibson’s Bond performance is giving more Eggsy from the Kingsman franchise than the experienced and hardened agent we all love and recognise at this stage. That makes sense for a raw, pre-00 Bond, and there are still enough building blocks in place – his charm, instincts, and rule-breaking tendencies remain intact – that it’s believable both character and actor will grow into the role. It’s a good thing, too; First Light is being billed as the first chapter in an ongoing James Bond game universe, and it has more than enough going for it for us to want to see – and play – what happens next.
