007 First Light
IO Interactive · Shooter, Action, Stealth
Overview
Earn the Number. 007 First Light is a thrilling espionage action-adventure game from IO Interactive. Follow James Bond as a young, resourceful and sometimes reckless recruit in MI6's training programme, and discover an origin story of the world’s most famous spy.
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Follow James Bond as a young, resourceful and sometimes reckless recruit in MI6's training program, and discover an origin story of the world’s most famous spy.
After a heroic act, young Naval air crewman James Bond is offered to join the newly revived Double 0 program. But when a mission to stop a rogue agent ends in tragedy, he must join forces with his reluctant mentor Greenway to expose a deep conspiracy and stop a looming coup at the heart of the State.
From the game's Steam store page.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,997 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Most players think IO Interactive made a great James Bond game, and many reach back to GoldenEye for a comparison. Hundreds describe it as "playing a Bond movie" or something close: a cinematic origin story with a charming young Bond, a strong supporting cast, globe-trotting set pieces, the Lana Del Rey opening titles, and a steady stream of nods to the films. The hand-to-hand combat, where Bond throws keyboards, mugs and empty guns and smashes goons into furniture, is the part of the actual gameplay players praise most often, and a third of all reviews talk about the story. Many players simply want a sequel, and "game of the year" is a common refrain.
The criticism is narrower and keeps returning to the same points. The game is far more linear than IO's Hitman games: yellow paint, companions who announce solutions, walk-and-talk sequences, unskippable cutscenes and scripted driving leave some players feeling they are watching instead of playing. That, plus a campaign of roughly 15 to 20 hours at $70 and thin post-game content, is behind much of the negative feedback. Technical problems (crashes, stutter, progression-blocking bugs, the game picking the wrong GPU) hit a smaller group hard, especially in launch week.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
It genuinely feels like playing a Bond movieHigh
Reviewers call it "absolute cinema", "A multi-hour bond film that you can play" and "better than most of the movies". A third of all reviews talk about the story, most of them warmly: the origin-story angle (a reckless young Royal Navy aircrewman earning his number), the twists that make players think the game is ending several times over, the timely AI-themed plot, and a finale that sets up more. The interactive training montage and the Slovakia hotel and chess tournament missions are named as highlights, and fans of every Bond era spot references to the films and Fleming's novels. The reservations are that the plot is predictable in places, the villain is forgettable, and the last third drags or turns silly (covered below). Some negative reviewers also say they liked the story.
Hand-to-hand combat and improvisationHigh
Players praise how fluid and physical the brawling feels, how Bond uses the environment (shoving enemies over railings, into bookcases and urinals, throwing whatever is within reach), and how failed stealth turns into a satisfying improvised fight instead of a game-over screen. Some compare it to the Arkham games, Sifu and Sleeping Dogs. A minority find it repetitive by the late game, too reliant on spamming parry, or inconsistent (blocks and counters that do not register, a camera that loses track of enemies in group fights). Combat comes up in 27% of negative reviews, mostly for those reasons.
A standout cast and a likeable young BondMedium
Most reviewers who mention Patrick Gibson like his cocky, quippy, still-learning Bond. Lennie James as mentor Greenway, Moneypenny, Q and M are singled out, and players note the facial capture and voice work as among the best they have seen. A smaller group finds Bond too smirking, too young or "not Bond", and some wish side characters such as the other 00 recruits had more screen time.
Gorgeous locations and level designMedium
The environments get consistent praise: the Carpathian hotel, the nightclub, the Aleph market, Vietnam and the Antarctic base, with dense crowds and NPC chatter worth eavesdropping on. Several players say it is among the best-looking games they own. A minority find textures flat or grainy up close, dislike the film grain and colour grading, or think it looks dated for its hardware demands.
Gadgets, bluffing and social stealthMedium
The Q-watch gadgets and especially the bluff mechanic, where Bond talks his way out of being caught in a restricted area, are frequently called fun and "very Bond". Players enjoy the social-engineering puzzles of the early missions. The criticisms are that the gadget selection is small and loadouts are limited, and that recharging the watch by collecting batteries and chemicals from props feels odd and fiddly.
Music and the Bond ritualLow
The Lana Del Rey theme, the score's use of the classic Bond motif at key moments, and the "James Bond will return" sign-off land well with fans. A few wish the classic theme appeared more often.
Where players are split
Not a Hitman game: linear, guided mission designHigh
Hitman is named in 28% of negative reviews, and linearity or hand-holding in 21%. Critics expected Hitman-style sandboxes and found mostly scripted paths with two or three options, yellow paint on every climbable ledge, highlighted conversations, companions who state the solution before you can think, and "illusion of choice" dialogue that leads to the same outcome. Some call it "Hitman on rails" or compare it to Hitman: Absolution. Many positive reviewers, meanwhile, warn readers not to expect Hitman ("don't go in expecting Hitman," as one puts it), describe it as Hitman crossed with Uncharted, and some welcome a tight, linear campaign after years of bloated open worlds. Players who played longer raise it more: among negative reviews from players with 10 or more hours, about a quarter cite linearity, roughly double the share among those who quit early.
Stealth depth and enemy AIMedium
Many players enjoy the stealth and like that getting spotted is recoverable. Others find it shallow: guards who do not notice fights a few metres away, enemies who see through walls in some encounters, no way to drag or hide bodies, and little consequence for going loud, which makes stealth feel optional or pointless. A few players on the hardest difficulty still call it easy.
Gunplay and "Licence to Kill"Medium
When shootouts arrive, many find them punchy and cinematic, and some enjoy the scarce ammo that forces weapon swapping and gun-throwing. Others dislike that Bond cannot draw his weapon until the game grants a licence to kill, that each pickup has only a few rounds and ammo does not transfer between guns, and that enemies spam grenades while Bond has none.
Performance and optimizationMedium
Experiences diverge sharply. Hundreds of players report smooth, well-optimized performance, including on older GPUs, the Steam Deck and Linux. Others, some on high-end hardware, report heavy stutter, frame drops in smoke, fog and driving scenes, VRAM spikes, the pause menu or settings menu tanking the frame rate until a restart, and poor FSR support on AMD cards. The later path-tracing update divided players again: some found it stunning, others were upset it arrived months after marketing promised it and was limited to recent high-end NVIDIA cards.
The long tutorial and slow openingMedium
Opinion splits on the first hours. Some call the training montage one of the best tutorials they have played. Others say the game takes two to four hours of training and cutscenes before it lets you play, and several refunded or quit during it. Players who stopped early raise this more often than those who played on.
What frustrates players
Too short for $70, with little to do afterwardsHigh
Price is raised in 20% of negative reviews and is often the stated reason for a thumbs-down on an otherwise enjoyed game. Players report finishing in about 12 to 20 hours and see little replay value: TacSim is a thin, challenge-based mode with none of Hitman's sandbox, there is no New Game+, and post-launch content arrived slowly. Many positive reviews still add "wait for a sale". A counter-camp argues a tight, polished 20-hour game respects their time, and some praise the regional pricing.
Too much watching, not enough playingMedium
Separate from linearity, 16% of negative reviews complain about the ratio of cutscenes to control: long unskippable scenes and credits, slow forced walking behind talking NPCs, QTEs (including a much-mocked bow-tie sequence), failure-prone interrogation choices that replay whole scenes, and scripted action where, as one reviewer puts it, "I win a fight, I lose in a cutscene". Players who like it call it an interactive movie; those who do not call it a movie with button prompts.
Crashes and progression-blocking bugsMedium
A recurring set of technical failures stops some players outright: crashes every 20 to 30 minutes, infinite loading screens, a black screen on launch, the game defaulting to the integrated GPU, NPCs that fail to spawn and soft-lock missions, the plane-rope chase that some cannot complete, a final boss that stands still, broken checkpoints and corrupted saves, and remapped keys that stop working. Some of these reviews say the issue persisted across several patches.
Weak back half and boss fightsMedium
Some players who finish say the first half is the best: the open social missions give way to more corridor shooting, repetitive encounters and filler traversal, and the London office infiltration, the robot sections and the final boss come up as low points. Boss fights are described as gimmicky and basic; one reviewer says "boss fights are so basic i finished each in a minute or 2 max".
Clunky controls, camera and PC optionsMedium
Keyboard and mouse controls are called awkward, with too many keybinds and remapping that breaks prompts. Players also cite a tight camera with no FOV slider (some report motion sickness and use mods), no melee lock-on, auto-vault that ruins stealth, cutscenes that do not support ultrawide monitors, and no option to disable aim assist or trim the HUD.
Scripted drivingMedium
Car chases are few and largely on autopilot, with steering assists that pull the car back on course. Players wanted more and freer driving, especially after the game teases the Aston Martin and barely lets them use it.
Checkpoints and no manual saveLow
Sparse checkpoints, long reloads after death, and "restart checkpoint" sometimes wiping a whole mission's progress make challenge runs and stealth attempts frustrating.
Online requirements and DRMLow
A small group objects to the online connection and data-collection prompts for a single-player game, and to TacSim needing a connection. The removal of Denuvo in late July was welcomed by several players.
Deluxe edition and locked cosmeticsLow
Buyers of the Deluxe edition were annoyed that its outfits only work in TacSim, not the campaign.
Product placement and celebrity cameosLow
Some players found the Omega, Land Rover and Coca-Cola placement and influencer cameos immersion-breaking.
3. The player conversation
Most of the conversation is enthusiastic. Many short reviews simply say "absolute cinema", "peak" or "best Bond game since GoldenEye", and longer positive reviews come from Bond fans and newcomers alike who were surprised by how well it captures the films. Negative reviews are fewer and make a narrower case: linearity, hand-holding, length and price. Among negatives from players who stopped within the first couple of hours, performance problems and the slow opening come up more often than they do in negatives from players who kept going.
Sentiment was lowest in launch week (74% positive), when about a quarter of reviews mentioned crashes, stutter or bugs. Through June, July and August it held between 87% and 92%. It dipped to about 84% from late August to mid-September; mentions of technical problems rose in early September, and path tracing came up mostly from mid-September on. By the final week of September sentiment was back to around 89%.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix the progression-blocking bugs and crash loops first. Soft-locks from NPCs not spawning, the plane-rope chase, infinite loading, corrupted saves, the wrong-GPU selection and the menu frame-rate collapse are the problems that stop players outright.
- Add player-controlled guidance and skip options. Let players turn down yellow paint, companion hints and objective reminders, and skip or speed up cutscenes, credits and walk-and-talk sections, since hand-holding and forced watching come up in a large share of negative reviews.
- Deliver a meatier post-game. Players ask for more story missions, a Hitman Freelancer-style sandbox or contracts mode, New Game+, and the ability to use unlocked and Deluxe outfits in the campaign, because the 15 to 20 hour campaign feels thin at $70.
- Deepen stealth systems. Body dragging and hiding, guards who react to nearby fights, and real consequences for going loud would answer the stealth complaints from players who came to it from Hitman.
- Improve checkpoints and saving. More frequent checkpoints, a manual or mission-restart save that does not wipe progress, and faster reloads would ease the frustration around challenges and failed interrogations.
- Expand PC options. An FOV slider, ultrawide cutscene support, reliable key remapping, FSR 4 support, an aim-assist toggle and melee lock-on are frequent, concrete requests.
- Loosen the licence-to-kill and ammo rules in combat. Letting players draw weapons more freely or share ammo across similar guns addresses the gunplay complaints without losing the improvised-combat feel players praise.
- Give driving more room. Fewer autopilot sections and at least one proper Aston Martin chase would answer a disappointment voiced by fans who otherwise loved the set pieces.
