007 First Light – First Impressions

007 First Light is here and, technically, it’s a marvel of programming engineering and semi-competent gameplay design (at least half the time). It runs like a dream and looks the part too. However, as with all dreams, it’s easy to wake up and be ripped out of the state of bliss—meaning: it’s got problems.

The elephant
Let’s start with the pink elephant in the room—is the game woke? Unfortunately, it is, but not in the style of making Bond gay and letting that be his only identifiable feature. It’s more in the line of being immersion‑breaking. Almost every position of power is held by a woman, and many of the recruits for MI6 are also female—implying that these tiny women can knock out (exclusively male) SAS soldiers with ease, which seems to be a requirement to become an agent. MI6 has also been hit with the stick of diversity, which means most of the higher‑ups are not white English (check for dual passports, stat!). It’s somewhat immersion‑shattering if you expect any kind of authenticity in the setting—but then again, I could be wrong, and maybe the Secret Intelligence Service of the UK looks like a gang initiation from L.A. nowadays.

Pacing and story
While the story has been fairly interesting, though somewhat predictable so far, my six hours invested into the game have not presented me with too much “fun” gameplay. The issue here is pacing and odd gameplay design outside the neck‑chopping and face‑blasting. You see, with 007 First Light being made by IO Interactive, the makers of the Hitman franchise, there is DNA of Hitman (specifically the newer games) inside this title, albeit incredibly streamlined and scripted. So, instead of being presented with a large sandbox to plan and do as you like, you are presented with a large area to explore with none of the sandbox from previous games. This means you will mostly be relegated to walking around, trying to find what new thing will propel the story further, instead of letting you have any kind of freedom.

I, of course, understand the reason for this limitation, as you are Bond now, not the Back Alley Strangler known as (the psychopath) Hitman-47. Now, I have not played for that long, but my first big area of this style ended with a shoot‑out that lasted for five minutes, while the walking and setup probably took two hours. In other words: it’s slooow! I praise them for letting the origin story simmer, but man, it sure takes time to get to the cool parts.

The cool parts
The little sneaking and shooting I have been allowed to do so far has been fun—if, like me, you find enjoyment in the occasional third‑person stealth pop‑a‑moler, like Uncharted 4, Metal Gear Solid V, Watch Dogs, and Splinter Cell (modern titles). The combo of snapping necks and having situations escalate to outright brawls and even shootouts has been a joy. It has not been too hard, even on the hardest setting, but then again, I’m only six hours in. I’m sure the game’s got a few surprises in store for me yet. But yeah, the fluidity going from melee, to gunfights and back again is something else. For example, thanks to the smooth controls, you can easily go from shooting one guard in the leg to pushing another over a railing in a hand‑to‑hand battle within a few seconds. It creates these moments of movie magic on the fly, especially when you get the hang of the controls.

Addendum
I need to add, now a few hours later (12), that there is an annoying problem with the combat too. It seems the designers just love pure chaos, so the fighting on each map seems to eventually accumulate into a massive shootout, almost regardless of how you played it previously before that moment. I understand the love for a good set-piece, but sadly it becomes a cluster fast, with every henchman and his mom gunning for you. It undermines any kind of realism the game sets up to this point, as this battle turns incredibly arcady and silly. 007 First Light seems to follow the script a little too tightly, because every area goes like this: cutscenes to introduce the location → linear low-key skulking → skulking with stealth and brawling → massive set-piece. After a few missions, it’s starting to feel very formulaic instead of a story following an organic path.

I should also add that the tone of the story has gone from something akin to a thriller to something where danger doesn’t mean much. The characters seem to take everything that happens to them as a joke, reminding me of horrible sarcastic Marvel writing. A few of the involved characters just come off as insufferable too, making them a pain to listen to. Especially the constant whining over everything that goes wrong. Jesus man!

Conclusion
It’s way too early to come with anything conclusive, yet the combat gameplay is cool and fun (mostly), while I think the pacing suffers from limited sandbox environments. The setting can also feel a little off, thanks to the “elephant” in the room, and depending on your view of the current UK administration, it can come off as you are working for an Empire of Evil a bit. And this is not only from a real-life perspective, as [SPOILERS] the damn agency in-game uses some kind of supercomputer that “predicts” crime and terrorism, giving me strong Minority Report vibes. Are we the baddies?—is all I can say.

I will give it a two and a half out of five so far on the good old enjoyment rating, almost solely based on the sneaking and battle gameplay. Oh well, it’s time to kick some more mercenary ass!