While 007 First Light was a great new entry into the larger James Bond canon, developer IO Interactive seemingly wanted to make it more of an ensemble story rather than just focusing on the protagonist. In an interview with Eurogamer, writer Michael Vogt spoke about a “false promise” made by early missions of the game that the other 00 aspirants would be more present in the story. Interestingly, his first pitch revolved around having the agents work together over the course of the entire game.
“During the training sequence, we make a false promise. Basically, we’re saying this is going to be an ensemble piece, all the double-Os working together, as they do in Slovakia. And then we pull the rug out from under you when most of them die, and serendipitously, [Bond’s] the last man standing. He could have died in that explosion, but he doesn’t, and so he emerges as the top agent. But in my very first pitch, I think we were actually toying with the idea of making it an ensemble piece, that you had the different agents working together.”
Vogt then discussed some of the character development Bond experiences due to the ill-fated Slovakia mission. Along with the protagonist taking things more seriously moving forward, the writer also noted that the general genre of 007 First Light’s story saw a slight shift. Despite this, however, the studio didn’t want to portray a Bond who had become jaded yet.
“We probably shifted the genre ever so slightly from more of a straight spy thriller to something that was a little bit more action-adventure – dialled up the comedy a little bit, maybe the charm, the spark,” he said. “We always wanted it to be aspirational. He’s a young guy, so whatever turns him jaded along the way, it hasn’t happened to him yet, so he should have that sense of bright-eyed wonder being so young.”
He went on to dispel the notion that Bond ends the game by being a more jaded secret agent. Rather, Vogt believes that Bond’s actions and attitude may have brought about some changes to MI6 itself. This could be seen with character arcs like those of Isola and Greenway.
“He matures, for sure, in many different ways, but he’s not jaded at all. In fact, he basically manages to change MI6 – it’s not the other way around. He changes the characters around him. Greenway goes through a redemption arc because of him. He even slightly makes Isola more of a human being towards the end. And he’s always done that. I don’t see James Bond as someone who goes through wide, dramatic arcs. He shifts ever so slightly, and then most of the time, he changes people around him.”
007 First Light was released on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S earlier this year, and a Nintendo Switch 2 version is on the way. The title has seen quite a bit of success, selling 2.7 million copies in its first week alone, and going on to become the best-selling game in the US for the month of May. For more details, check out our review. Also, take a look at our thoughts on how it makes the case for shorter, sharper AAA campaigns.
