007 First Light will focus on Bond’s origin story and character, with no shortage of cinematic action

James Bond is one of the most well-known characters in fiction. The iconic agent 007 is soon to return to the realm of video games, and we had a chance to dig a little deeper behind the scenes.

At Gamescom 2025, we were given the opportunity to speak to IO Interactive devs working on 007 First Light, which deals with the agent's dubious early days. Our speaker was Theuns Smit, the studio's senior licensing producer. He told us about the steps IO had to take to acquire a 007 license, what this upcoming game will be about, and how IO went about creating it.

Here's the full interview.

Note: The following conversation was partially edited to improve text clarity and remove repetition.

007 First Light explores Bond's chaotic past and what would later make him the agent we all know and love. Image via IO Interactive

So, licensing producer. How difficult was it to get the 007 license, especially during its shift from MGM to Amazon?

Theuns Smit (senior licensing producer, IO Interactive): We've been working on 007 First Light for some time now. Ever since we announced it back around the end of 2020, [when] we had a bit of a teaser trailer. And that also really helped us to draw in additional talent for this adventure that we wanted to tell.

But from the very beginning, when we approached MGM, we really were able to show the 25 years of experience that IO Interactive has with the agent fantasy realm and stealth action and all of that. So, from the beginning, we also shared with them what we wanted to do with it, a reimagined origin story of James Bond. I think it was a clear win for them as the licensors as well to trust us with this. 

And we've been collaborating really well ever since. So, even now that we have Amazon MGM, there's a really great partnership there for them, understandably. They get to review and, in certain parts, also [provide] feedback and approve the things that we are adding in. But they trust us with our expertise. And yeah, it's a great partnership.

How do you actually go about taking all that source material that is provided to you with the books, the movies, and then deciding on reimagining and approaching it in your own way?

Smit: As you say, there's a plethora of source material. So, many of us working on the team have also been long-time Bond fans. So, looking at the films, looking at the novels, there's definitely a lot of inspiration we can draw from that.

But we knew that we wanted to tell our own story and inject our own into it. We weren't interested in just doing a retelling or a game based on a film or anything like that. So, there are certain elements that we found standing out to us and [were] intriguing that we wanted to infuse into our version of Bond.

Some eagle-eyed fans out there spotted our announcement trailer, the scar that we put on his face. That is very much from the description Ian Fleming gave in his novels that never really translated into the films. So, we get to have a bit of a unique angle there, but there's a narrative purpose behind it as well. You'll see as you play the game.

But it gave us an opportunity to tell a version of James Bond that you perhaps haven't seen before. He's younger when you first meet him. He's not yet at MI6. He doesn't have his 00 status. He's really fresh out of the Royal Navy. And where you find him in the storyline at the very beginning, the 00 program has basically been discontinued for roughly 10 years before getting restarted again.

And our James Bond finds himself thrown into this world of espionage, and through this 00 program, which gave us a great opportunity not only from a narrative point of view, but also gameplay. Because you get to go on this journey with him as he's finding his purpose, aiming to earn his number, but in a gameplay sense as well, you are getting trained up alongside him.

So, the gameplay progression that he's going through as a character, you [go] as a player as well, and we found that really creative.

You mentioned the 25 years of history you guys have in making the games in the Agent 47 series. A lot of people felt when the announcement first came out that it was just going to be a James Bond skin over an Agent 47 game, right? But obviously, you guys aren't doing that. You're going in a direction that's very much its own thing. Could you tell us about how you looked at the direction of this game when developing it, to make sure that it wasn't just an Agent 47 game with an 007 splash art on it? 

Smit: For us, in a nutshell, what 007 First Light is, it's a third-person, story-driven, action-adventure game. That in itself is already a departure from the Hitman games we've made before. So, leaning into that action-adventure style means that you would expect from Bond not only a compelling narrative, but this cinematic feel and approach, where we're just elevating everything, cranking it up to 11.

So, there might be here and there things [you recognize], if you're a Hitman fan. What makes IO Interactive unique is our creative approach that we give to players. But we're putting it within the realm and setting of James Bond. So, you will have your gadgets from Q brands.

You will learn how to deal with stealth. But at the same time, there's this intrinsic nature of Bond, his Bondiness, so to speak. His charm, his wit, his guile, that comes to play as well. From our previous games, the character there, [is] more of a chaos agent, more of a shell with a target. Bond himself is a fully-fledged character. He's a young man in search of his destiny.

That means that element becomes part of the storytelling as well. So, his personality will shine through. And that is really where that action-adventure, story-driven side comes into play.

One of the most beloved video games of all time was GoldenEye on the N64. And obviously, since then, the level of James Bond games has been mixed at best. But because of the pedigree of this series and this IP, it would be very easy just to follow and just put something out there. But is there any inspiration, not only from the books and the games, that the team has looked at when developing this game to try to make it a fully-fledged experience?

Smit: Yes, I mean, the team back home, we're all gamers at heart as well. So, we're interested in making a game and an experience that we ourselves would also want to play.

So, when you look at the umbrella, the genre of story-driven, action-adventure, third-person games, there's a plethora of games out there that, as gamers, we all get to enjoy and love. But we're very much focused on setting our own path and our own experience that we want to create for players. So, we're very focused on the balance between what the story needs, what we need to drive the story forward, and what level of gameplay we expect, the quality bar that we want.

Yes, there's the stealth and the espionage and so on, but when things perhaps escalate a bit, Bond himself, he's still an agent of the MI6. There are certain rules of engagement he has to follow. So, when the enemy lifts the danger level to open combat and firearms, you then get granted, by ear, your license to kill.

And that in itself is a really great game loop that we introduce, where you can meet force with force. And then once you're in it, we really wanted to keep the momentum driving forward. So, as you'll see later on, Bond needs to improvise. That is one of his strengths. That's kind of what makes Bond himself. Not only is he charming and witty and all that, but he's focused, and he uses the environment around him.

He uses the enemy's strengths and motions, sometimes against them. There'll be a moment where, if you're on an elevated area platform, Bond can grab the enemy and rush forward and break his fall on them. Then they're knocked out. Keep the action moving. Kick up their gun. Grab it. Shoot the enemy. 

One of my personal favorite little gameplay features that we have as well is, once you've grabbed an enemy's weapon and you've fired all the bullets out, you don't just drop it. It becomes a weapon by itself. Throw that gun at the next enemy. Charge in. Disarm him. Keep the motion flowing.

We're really focusing on that forward momentum, not only from a story point of view, but gameplay as well.

Is there anything in the game that you feel will be a surprise to both players and James Bond fans that maybe you haven't shown off yet?

Smit: That's a great question. I think maybe not as much a surprise, but something pleasant that you would hope to have there, and then you get to have it there, is the level of immersion. If you yourself are a Bond fan, there are various locations that we're going to take you to.

You would expect the globe-trotting, not only from a franchise point of view, but it's something [we have expertise in] as IO Interactive. So you'll go to different locations. Some of the areas and missions will be bigger, some will be smaller. But as you saw in our announcement trailer, MI6, you get to go there. Q Lab, you get to go there. So this is going to be spaces and levels of immersion that you haven't explored before in other games or perhaps even in the films to this extent.

So I love the fact that our writer team, our level designers, everybody working together has really put a focus on bringing that authentic Bond experience to life. And if you find yourself perhaps not a super Bond fan, well, then there's the action-adventure story side that will be intriguing for you as well.

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