007 First Light is a 2026 action-adventure video game developed and published by IO Interactive. Based on the James Bond franchise, it tells an original narrative inspired by the novels and short stories by Ian Fleming, and the film series starring the character. The game depicts James Bond's origin story, as he embarks on his journey to earn his 00 status.
Following the critical and commercial failure of 007 Legends (2012), publisher Activision had its non-exclusive licence to produce James Bond video games revoked, resulting in an extended hiatus of video games adaptations. IO Interactive announced the development of a James Bond game in November 2020. The game entered full production at IO Interactive following the completion of Hitman 3 (2021), and was fully revealed in June 2025.
007 First Light was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on 27 May 2026, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version scheduled for March 2027. The game received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, with praise given to the gameplay, combat, writing, and Patrick Gibson's performance as Bond. It had sold 4 million units by August 2026.
Gameplay
Players control James Bond as he goes through training and executes missions to become a fully-fledged MI6 agent. The game is played from a third-person perspective, with occasional quick-time events and cutscenes.
As Bond, players participate in operations to advance the story, culminating in him "earning the number". Players may choose to complete missions aggressively, fighting enemies and taking them down, or by using bluffs and environmental items to slip past enemies and talk their way out of trouble.
Bond is able to parry opponents' attacks and perform takedowns to neutralize them. While Bond is usually restricted to non-lethal means of combat when engaging enemies, he may be granted a "licence to kill" when enemies show the intent to kill him, permitting Bond to use lethal force, including the use of firearms.
007 First Light features an Omega Seamaster chronograph watch specially designed for the game, alongside the Aston Martin Valhalla sports car. Q's lab is responsible for supplying Bond's mission attire, weapons, equipment and vehicles. Bond's main tool on his missions is the Q Watch, a modified Omega Seamaster Diver 300M which can hack electronics, and he can bring other gadgets to use on his missions.
Story Setting and characters 007 First Light depicts an original narrative that draws inspiration from the novels and short stories by Ian Fleming and the film franchise featuring the character. Described as an origin story for the character, the game follows a young James Bond (Patrick Gibson), who is portrayed as a 26-year-old, inexperienced MI6 agent tasked with a mission that, when completed successfully, will grant him his 00 status.
The game features new iterations of Bond characters such as M (Priyanga Burford), Q (Alastair Mackenzie), and Miss Moneypenny (Kiera Lester), re-imagined to reflect their roles in shaping Bond's early career. The game features original characters, such as Bond's reluctant MI6 mentor and former 00 agent John Greenway (Lennie James), Bond girl and thief Isola Vale (Noémie Nakai), psychology and game theory expert Selina Tan (Gemma Chan), flamboyant arms dealer Bawma (Lenny Kravitz), Bond's training colleagues Cressida Bright (Jessica Rhodes) and former SAS trooper Lennox Monroe (Chris O'Reilly), and Bond villains Sir Nicholas Webb (Anthony Howell), his son, Damien (Bart Edwards), and their personal assassins, the Murto Twins (Anssi Lindström).
Plot
A Special Air Service team is ambushed during a retrieval operation in Iceland, leaving Navy aircrewman James Bond the sole survivor. Guided by an MI6 handler, he reaches the targeta research camp studying a crashed satellitefinding it occupied by a mercenary group. Defying orders, Bond rescues the captive scientists and destroys the camp, preventing the asset from falling into enemy hands.
Bond is recruited by M, the head of MI6, to join the revitalised 00 program. Despite starting months behind the six other candidates, he passes the training under the strict regimen of his reluctant instructor, John Greenway. He grows close to his team, especially recruits Monroe and Cressida. A few months later, the team is tasked with apprehending Rhys Beckett, a rogue agent and former 009, at a hotel in Slovakia. Bond follows a suspicious staff member revealed to be one of twin assassins, the Murtos, who fatally stab Monroe and set off a bomb that kills two other recruits and cripples Cressida. Before Beckett escapes, Bond attaches a wristwatch to his plane, allowing MI6 to track him to Mauritania.
Bond and Greenway set off to capture Beckett but discover that he has been killed. They deduce that Beckett was the target of the bombing rather than the mastermind, but the proof is destroyed in a mercenary ambush. Despite Bond and Greenway suspecting a larger plot, M declares Beckett responsible for the bombing and closes the case. One of the Murto twins attacks Bond at home; Bond chases him to a gala hosted by AI pioneer Sir Nicholas Webb and kills him. He finds evidence incriminating Webb for the bombing in Slovakia and learns Greenway is also a target.
Bond is captured by Webb's son Damien and is rescued by Isola Vale, a professional thief he met while she was masquerading as a French agent in Slovakia. He reunites with Greenway, who has killed the assassins sent after him. The pair infiltrate Webb Industries' headquarters and, with Isola's help, learn that Webb's actions are cover-ups for mistakes committed by his quantum supercomputer, THEIA, which is being employed by MI6 to predict terrorist threats. THEIA's first mistake was falsely identifying Beckett and two other agents as moles, whom Greenway was sent to eliminate, with Webb having murdered Beckett to prevent him from exposing THEIA's flaws. Shocked by the revelation, Greenway goes off-grid.
Despite orders to bring both agents in on terrorism charges, M sends Bond to a luxury resort in Vietnam to gather evidence on Webb's duplicity and intercept Damien, who plans to conduct another cover-up by murdering geneticist Theresa Lorca. Bond saves Lorca and kills the other Murto twin but is captured by Damien in the process. After being freed by Greenway, Bond seemingly kills Damien by crushing him under pipes. Greenway, fatally wounded in the encounter, admits in his final moments that Bond is what MI6 needs and his heroic nature is what defines him.
Webb coerces M into granting him immunity by leaking vital MI6 information. Unwilling to accept such an outcome, Bond goes rogue and teams up with Isola to infiltrate Webb's facility in Antarctica, where he discovers Webb's scheme to supplant the British government with THEIA's sibling AI, HYPERION. Bond fights his way to HYPERION's core, but Isola fatally shoots Webb and steals the core for herself. Bond manages to stop Isola and destroy the core, and both are taken into MI6 custody. They are freed when mercenaries attack MI6 headquarters. While Isola flees, Bond heads to THEIA's chamber, finding Damien stealing THEIA's core. After dispatching the mercenaries with a customized Aston Martin Valhalla, Bond chases Damien into the sewers, disables his exo-suit, and throws himself and Damien into the reservoir below. Damien drowns while Bond is saved by Isola, who kisses him before making off with THEIA's core.
At Greenway's grave, M informs Bond that he has been cleared of all charges and formally inducts him into the "00" program. Designating himself 007 in honour of being the seventh recruit, Bond vows to track Isola down to recover the THEIA core and find out for whom she works.
Development 007 First Light is the first major game featuring James Bond following a hiatus resulting from the critical and commercial failure of 007 Legends (2012), which saw publisher Activision having its non-exclusive licence to produce video games using the James Bond intellectual property (IP) revoked by Eon Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in January 2013. The IP licensing agreement for IO Interactive's game was later brokered by Delphi Interactive with Danjaq, the holding company that owns Eon Productions, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Hitman series developer IO Interactive met with Eon Productions to pitch their own vision for a James Bond video game as they were developing Hitman 3 (2021). According to company president Hakan Abrak, the studio was under the impression that "[Eon] were not looking for a game", having grown dissatisfied with the action-oriented style and gameplay of the latest console Bond games under Activision. Chief creative officer Christian Elverdam stated that a move away from relying on weapons to complete missions was an integral part of the studio's pitch to Eon, citing their work on Hitman as a game where violent solutions were actively discouraged, as an example of how Eon were convinced by IO Interactive that there was a "sophistication" in how the developers approached espionage gameplay. IO Interactive emphasised its interest in pursuing an original interpretation of James Bond, divorced from any of the prior literary and cinematic incarnations of the character, as they wished to apply a similar effort to creating their own narrative for an existing IP as they did for any of their original projects and characters. This includes the likeness of James Bond himself, which is not derived from any of the actors to portray him on film, a first for the character in a playable capacity since James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire (2001).
Elverdam was excited at the prospect of having a version of James Bond produced from the ground up for gaming, remarking on how it removed expectations that their version of the character would have to adhere to characteristics of pre-existing iterations while also being a take on the property "gamers can call their own". He additionally recalled a trip that the development team had made to Pinewood Studios during production of the film No Time to Die (2021), which instilled the "gravity" of taking on the Bond licence. According to Abrak, the idea of depicting James Bond's origin and efforts to claim his licence to kill, an event only definitively and briefly portrayed in the opening of the Daniel Craig film Casino Royale (2006), was enthusiastically received between IO Interactive and Eon, who were both receptive to the idea of a narrative that is "completely beginning and becoming a story" as opposed to directly adapting the plot of an existing Bond film. The game's art director, Rasmus Poulsen, stated that the team sought to avoid portraying certain aspects of the character that were deemed outdated, and in particular, attitudes towards women seen expressed by Bond in previous series entries that the developers believed would be perceived as sexist by modern audiences.