IO Interactive built the Hitman trilogy. Three games of near-perfect stealth. Patient. Precise. Lethal only when required, and only when it was the most elegant solution. There is no studio better suited to make a James Bond game.
007 First Light is a Bond origin story. A young, reckless MI6 recruit who has not yet earned the number. The game asks how James Bond became James Bond — and at what cost. The answer appears to involve Slovakia, a chess tournament, and a rogue agent who is always one step ahead.
The Hitman DNA
The mechanics carry over cleanly. Multiple approaches. Disguises. Environmental puzzles. The freedom to be completely silent or spectacularly violent. Bond's world was always a natural fit for this. A gala becomes a mission with seventeen solutions. A target becomes a problem with no single correct answer.
Lana Del Rey performs the title song. The locations include the Grand Carpathian Hotel in the High Tatra Mountains. The tone is grounded and cinematic — closer to Casino Royale than the gadget-heavy excess of the later Brosnan era.
Release
May 27, 2026 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. Switch 2 version follows later that summer.
Previews have been largely positive. The one recurring question is whether the protagonist feels sufficiently like Bond. He is young. He is eager. He narrates his own actions. Kage reserves judgement. The shadow has patience.