IO Interactive is speaking with a lot of confidence about 007 First Light, and it looks like they are aiming very high with the project. The studio believes the game can finally go beyond GoldenEye 007, the Nintendo 64 classic that many fans still see as the best James Bond game ever made.
During a recent interview with GamesRadar, 007 First Light narrative and cinematics director Martin Emborg was asked what kind of “legacy” he hopes the game will leave behind, to which he replied, “Just that everyone agrees that this is the best Bond game ever.”
Patrick Gibson, the actor playing the younger James Bond in the game, also joined the conversation, saying, “Or just the best game ever.” Emborg playfully replied, “I’ll take that. That’s kind of the minimum that we expect.”
While it is easy to say you want to create the best James Bond game ever made, actually doing it is the hard part. However, it will not take long to find out if they can truly live up to those claims, as 007 First Light launches on 27 May for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version also planned for later this year.
If you don’t know much about the game, 007 First Light is a thrilling narrative action-adventure spy game where you play as a young and reckless James Bond before he becomes a famous secret agent. Fresh out of the Navy, he joins MI6 to stop a rogue agent.
In other news, Sony has unveiled the limited-edition 007 First Light DualSense controller for PlayStation 5, launching alongside the game on May 27 for $84.99 with a gold James Bond-inspired design. For more 007 First Light related coverage, keep checking GameObserver.
thebruce on May 20th, 2026 at 19:24 UTC »
Goldeneye was very much a game of its time. For lots of us, it was probably one of the first shooters we played, and is inextricably intertwined with playing local multiplayer against friends or siblings.
So, I don't even know what it would mean to be a "better" game than Goldeneye. Pretty much damn near any shooter released in the last 10 years is better than Goldeneye from basically any perspective other than difficulty settings, which it did a great job with.
If they're saying they want it to be remembered with a similar cultural impact and memory as Goldeneye.... damn. I appreciate the ambition, but the cultural context has dramatically changed. It's another stealthy action game in a long line of stealthy action games, with seemingly only the James Bond IP to differentiate it from the crowd.
If they're gonna heavily lean into the spycraft aspect of things, then why even compare to Goldeneye...?
Briguy_fieri on May 20th, 2026 at 19:01 UTC »
This is night fire erasure and I won't stand for it
feartheoldblood90 on May 20th, 2026 at 18:55 UTC »
Glad to hear they're setting modest goals