007 First Light Review

IO Interactive had one obvious move available, which was Hitman in a tuxedo, and mostly declined it. First Light is a linear thriller with sandbox pockets, and the reason it works is that this Bond is twenty six and unproven. Patrick Gibson plays him as a talented man who has not yet learned what the licence costs, and the missions are written to punish confidence: a hotel infiltration collapses because he improvises, a car chase is survived rather than won, and the gadgets are field expedients instead of Q branch miracles.

The Glacier engine's crowd and disguise systems carry over intact, so the strongest levels give you a floor plan, a target schedule and enough rope to hang yourself, and the studio's instinct for a comic escape route is still sharp. Where it slips is the shooting, competent and forgettable in a game whose best ideas are quieter, and a final act reaching for spectacle the earlier restraint had made unnecessary. Bond games have been chasing one Nintendo 64 shooter's formula for nearly thirty years. This is the first in decades to find its own instead of borrowing.