STACK #260 June 2026

GAMING FEATURE

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ALWAYS ON THE RUN… While familiar 007 staples such as M, Q, and Miss Moneypenny feature in 007 First Light , Bond’s main adversary, Bawma, is a wholly new creation. He’s portrayed by Lenny Kravitz.

Bond’s first outing and he’s 26 years old, so I think he’s going to want to turn and watch that explosion. How relevant to the real world is the 007 First Light story? Belonging is definitely a theme in this story. He’s a young man who hasn’t found his

GENRE: Action adventure MULTIPLAYER: No

FORMAT:

The much-anticipated original James Bond adventure 007 First Light has hit, letting us discover how the young LICENCE TO THRILL!

place in the world or his purpose yet. What does it mean to be a double 0 in this age? And does the world even still need them? Will heart and intuition even matter, or can technology just do everything better? So, in that sense the story reflects the times that we live in, which is also something that Bond stories have always done. We have a bluff mechanic, something Bond can do to get out of a tight spot because we felt that that’s exactly the sort of thing a young James Bond would do. Agent 47 in Hitman , he plans meticulously, but Bond is not somebody who plans meticulously. He’s very impulsive. You know, he just goes in and he wings it. How do you go about creating a game that’s set in an established cinematic world such as that of 007? When we start out in a pre-production, we make a story outline that looks pretty much like a feature film, only it’s a little bit more elastic. The way I see it as a game writer, you really have two toolboxes. Toolbox number one is the classic screenwriting craft. The time-honoured method of structuring plots and creating character arcs and themes that resonate and kind of tying it all together into a meaningful experience. And then, once you’ve Has this young Bond offered up any special gameplay opportunities?

spy became a 00.The game’s main writer at IO Interactive, Michael Vogt, tells us more… Words Bec Summer

How familiar will your Bond be to fans of the movie franchise? Many of the aspects that you associate with James Bond are already there as innate qualities. He’s incredibly charming and charismatic, and he’s audacious. He’s very cool under pressure and of course he’s insanely capable and resourceful – and there’s also a ruthlessness to him when the situation requires it. He’s not the suave connoisseur who knows everything about champagne and wine and fancy cars. I think that will come with age and experience. But because he’s a young guy, there are also some traits that we haven’t really seen before. There’s an innocence to him here. He’s quite trusting and earnest and idealistic even. 007 First Light sees us delving into the origin story of James Bond. How important was this clean slate to you, and what freedoms did it offer up? The origin aspect was always central to the project vision. Since we meet Bond as a young man, the tone and the story world also needed to reflect his sort of youthful perspective. It’s not a dark and gritty or cynical world. It’s

done that, you go to toolbox number two, and that’s the game writing craft. That’s where you take that initial outline and then translate it somehow into an interactive experience. And throughout production, we work very closely with level designers in just designing the moment-to moment story gameplay flow. Creating this is a much more demanding task than simply writing a classic story outline, and it takes like 50 times as long.

dangerous to be sure, but it’s fun and inviting and adventurous and ultimately hopeful. He’s not jaded yet – Bond is experiencing this hidden, exciting world of espionage for the very first time. Of course, we want to convey a sense of bright-eyed wonder here. There’s this trope of the hero who walks away from explosions, right? Because he’s so cool. But the reason heroes walk away from explosions is because they’ve seen so many of them. This is

• 007 First Light is out now

IF YOU LIKE THIS, YOU’LL LOVE THESE:

Hitman: World of Assassination, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, Mafia: The Old Country

28 JUNE 2026

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