007 First Light is finally out this week, on May 27 for those who haven’t fallen for a FOMO pre-order (May 26 for those who have), but according to developers IO “a few users got hold of the disc early.” As a result of this, and the inevitable crummy uploads to video sites, the studio has opted to put up the first 13 minutes of the James Bond game in 4K on YouTube, so we can watch it “as intended.” You can see it all below.
As IO points out, “Spoilers ahead, so if you’d rather save it for the in-game experience, best steer clear!” And yeah, if this is a game you’ve been hankering to play since its earliest announcement in 2020, there doesn’t seem to be a good reason to watch this all without the controller in your own hands. But if you’re unsure, or simply wondering how the team that has brought us Hitman for so many years is approaching the iconic spy, this is how it begins:
Which, to my eyes, is weirdly like a Call of Duty cutscene. I’m no James Bond connoisseur, and honestly lost track of the franchise during the Daniel Craig era, but for me a Bond movie opens with some incongruous stunt scene like skiing down a mountain while shooting at anonymous baddies, not with boring men in a boring helicopter in a scene that could be from any shooter in any franchise from the last 700 years.
We’re then treated to a full minute of almost literally nothing at all, before a sleepy young James floats deep underwater like an in vitro baby. Then you press L to video game, and it video games.
And I mean, it video games. It’s dark, rainy, you hide behind rocks, you crouch in tall grass, and you hammer that triangle button, and you shimmy along cracks in a cliff. He sidles. And oh my dear god, he squeezes sideways through a narrow gap in a cave. It’s every Tomb Raider and Uncharted with the lights switched off. Where’s my jetpack chase? Where’s a mid-air no-parachute fight? Why doesn’t he have a plastic crocodile on his head?
Now, obviously we want a sneaky stealth game: this is IO and it’s what they do best. But I’m really surprised by how gloomy and utterly generic this opening is. I’m quite certain the larger game will feature all sorts of excellent sequences and grand stunts, because, again, this is IO. But wowsers, what a bland way to start.
The acting seems great, and we already know that at least three hours of the game are top fun. So I’m still very interested to play the game later this week when it’s out. But gosh, what an odd way to open a James Bond game.