After being first teased years ago, IO Interactive’s007 First Lighthas finally shown its hand. The third-person action-adventure game introduces a young James Bond who is attempting to earn his 00 status, several years before the events ofDr. No. Thisfresh approach to Bondfeels like it was exactly what was needed, allowing for a unique origin story in the franchise.
Game Rant recently caught up with IO Interactive franchise art director Rasmus Poulsen to break down the development of007 First Lightin more detail. He talked about IO Interactive’s journey and how this game’s version of James Bond differs from previous ones.This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
IO Interactive Has Been Incredibly Busy in Recent Years
Q: IO Interactive has been on quite a journey in the past 10 years. Can you talk us through what that’s been like?
A:Yeah, it’s been wild! I got my first gig straight out of school at IO back in 2004. That was a long time ago, so I’ve been in and around all the different projects we’ve been doing since then. Of course, a lot of that time has been spentcrafting spy and agent fantasies, globe-trotting, and all that stuff. After becoming independent, for us to now be here, for what feels like the pinnacle and ultimate resolution for me as an art director after all these years spent playing within the agent fantasy, it feels amazing.
Personally, I can honestly say that this is the highlight of my experience and my career getting toplay in this sandbox of James Bond, which has inspired me as a tentpole franchise since I was a kid going to the movies. It also inspired me throughout my professional career in terms of showing how to mix excitement with cool set pieces, high-end locations with danger and grit, and all that cool stuff. Yeah, it feels like a pinnacle moment right now and, I think, for the company doing a showcase, having multiple projects, and all these things happening and technological growth.
Establishing the Rules of Bond
Q: When deciding your initial approach to Bond and figuring out what you do and don’t want to do, were there any kind of rules that were established for this version of Bond?
A:In terms of mechanics, of course,James Bond is a good guy, which means you can’t really make a Chaos Engine game. You can’t make a game where all the rules are off because all the rules certainly aren’t off. First, it would be out of character. Second of all, it wouldn’t fit the job description. Rather than being a psycho-criminal or personal assassin, this guy has a heart and that’s key to him, to his journey and, of course, to him battling his own instincts with the needs of his employer and the needs of the situation are really key to him too.
Being a good guy obviously sets him apart from what we’ve done before in that sense, and you can imagine that. We leveraged a lot of our experience, but we also had a lot of things to learn abouthow Bond engages with that world, with the opportunities offered by the enemies and characters as well as the environment itself.
Q: What is that experience like of being able to say that your team is going to create a new era of James Bond?
A:It’s an amazing opportunity for us. This is our version of Bond tailored specifically for this origin story that we’ve made for you guys, the players. That’s, of course, a huge undertaking and a huge responsibility. It’s something that certainly weighed on our shoulders because we know that people will have opinions about it and that it’s going to be a contested space to enter in terms of what people are going to say about this guy. But it’s also part of the fun of having people respond to what you do. It’s exciting. It also feeds us with tempered excitement of doing it. We’ve really gone throughthe entire era of the IP and looked at both films and booksto find out who this guy is at the core, what is his problem, what is he up against, what does he need?
This Bond Was Always Going to Be Young
Q: Were there any specific iterations of Bond that you focused on?
A:Well, we knew from the get-go he was going to be young. We wanted him to be younger so that he would better match the experience of a younger audience playing the game. What does a tutorial look like with a game with aseasoned pro who knows everything about the spy world?Maybe there’s a chance there of some narrative dissonance that we don’t have with this younger guy, so that’s a really, really cool opportunity for us. Then, of course, it’s about working out how to best portray this spirited but maladjusted young man as he finds his way, and yeah, it’s been a lot of work in getting there.
Q: Was there a bit of a sigh of relief from your team when the live-action Bond didn’t transition immediately from Daniel Craig to someone new, which meant you guys could create a new version of James Bond at the best possible time?
A:In that sense, we are unrelated to the wider IP, and we are unrelated to the movies. We’ve been unrelated since day one, so we haven’t really had any considerations or concerns about film or things like that. We’ve been enjoying the journey on film like everybody else, but we’ve been focusing on crafting our own take on an origin story for Bond since the beginning. So we haven’t really worried about it.
007 First Light Plays With All the Famous Bond Tropes
Q: With Bond, there are so many iconic elements: cars, gadgets, characters, locations. What has been the most fun to play around with in terms of the design?
A:To be honest, all the tropes have been fun because it’s such an exciting place to get into with the locations and the wide variety of places you visit. From low-life crime nests to high-end places for the higher echelons of society, that’s totally Bond, right?Characters, car chases, action, all that stuff is really fun because there is an expectation to it, and it’s fun to play with that expectation. Sometimes we might give you exactly what you expect, but sometimes we’ll also give you something unexpected. First, we tried to live up to the DNA and the expectations of the character, then thereafter we tried to have some fun with the expectations.
Q: Was there anything in particular that you or the development team agonized over? Maybe a particular gadget, a car, or something like that?
A:We’ve had a lot of discussions, even about the things that we chose from the get-go. With Bond himself, we knew what we wanted there, but getting that to live has been a journey in terms of some of the partners we’re working with.Aston Martin, for instance. We knew we wanted the DBS, the yellow one you saw in the trailer. That’s the one we were super excited about, so that was a given from the start. Then seeing that actually in the game and in high-res was super, super cool. Then there were things like, for instance, the development of the scar, what’s too much, what’s too little? We’ve been agonizing about all that stuff. Even the easy stuff wasn’t easy!
007 First Light Will Also Feature Other Well-Known Characters From the Franchise
Q: In addition to Bond, you’re bringing to this game world other characters that people know, like Q, Moneypenny, etc. What has that been like?
A:Let’s take M, for example, who in our version is also younger than he or she has been in the past. She’s just rebooted the 00 program from being dormant for a while and this young Bond represents a rash energy that she believes can help with that. Then, you meet your classic favorites, Moneypenny andof course Q as well. You will learn what they mean to Bond’s character, and what part of his development they represent. Then there as well you also have your mentor, Greenway, as you saw in the trailer, who isn’t particularly excited about having to train this unwilling, youthful hooligan. The drama and, let’s say, the relations that young Bond has with these people are key to forming him. It allows us to give you some of the human drama that you expect from Bond, as well as a wider cast including villains and everything else you’d expect.
How First Light Uses Humor
Q: Within theHitmangames, there’s this kind of mixture of humor and chaos in what you’re doing. What can fans of IOI expect fromFirst Lightin that respect?
A:What we’ve done in the past withHitmanhas been worlds where our main character has been quite dry, and the humor in that space exists between our dry protagonist and the world he engages with. The dry awkward tension between them and the audience knowing what’s going to happen creates the humor in that world, and that world is quite open to being fun and absurd at times, really allowing for this dynamic tension between tones. Deadpan, serious cool tone on one end, and absurd craziness in the game world.
For 007, it’s really about us having a character that embodies that humorhimself. He is the one emitting dry quips here and there to a world that is otherwise reasonably oblivious to that tone. So it’s really fun for us to play with a character that allows you, the player, and him to be the fun one and to be the dry wit. He knows why he’s funny, so it’s a completely different mechanic. That’s been really enjoyable for us to play with.
Q: In the game, how much are the players themselves creating the cool moments that epitomize James Bond, and how much of those moments have been curated?
A:We are primarily anarrative-driven action-adventure game, and that means that we have a certain emotion and a certain story that leads to that emotion that we have to unfold for you so that you feel what we want you to feel alongside our main character. That means that the story is linear, allowing us to control that for you. Within that, though, the game widens up and allows you to have this creative approach that we’ve played with in the past and that’s certainly present here as well.
That means you then have access to a wide variety of gameplay, from shooting rifles and driving cars to socially-oriented gameplay as well as gadgets, and there you can choose the path that feels appropriate for you. It’s important to us that you have a choice and availability of the width of the game in front of you. There is a lot of emergence from that.You can choose if you want to go loud or silentand create a bit of chaos or not.
007 First Light Will Feature Some Interesting Locales
Q: Bond has visited all kinds of locales. What were those discussions like for your team, around locations specifically?
A:We’ve been inspired by the IP’s past and certainly locations as well. It was something we discussed from the get-go. The locations, in a sense, become their own characters in the project similar to what we’ve done in the past. The location is super important. From my point of view, what can you expect? What are the rules in this place, what’s a surprising way for Bond to live the high life? What’s a surprising way for him to hit the grimiest, most dangerous places in the world, and how do we explain that context narratively?
What does that allow us to do in terms of gameplay? The locations, as withthe games we’ve done in the past, are super important and key to the narrative, gameplay, and probably most of all, the expectations of the player. We know what you want, we want to give it to you, and we want to give it to you in a way that you didn’t think you’d get it. We wanted surprising locations that felt like they fit into a world of espionage.
Q: What is the thing that you are most excited about the players to experience when they get their hands on the game next year?
A:I’m super-happy, excited, and proud of the fact that this isa young Bond venturing into the world of espionage. I think that is so cool because it is something that hasn’t been experienced before. I’m excited by that, almost like as a player and as a professional, and I’m super excited about the locations, what we do with them and in them. For instance, we see the car in the trailer. That is something that we haven’t done before, and as a car nerd and a setting-the-stage nerd, I love locations. I love style. I love the dramatic portrayal of action in a given location. The combination of that new width we have to play with from a point of view and how they are staged in these amazing locations that have inspired me throughout my career, but also since I was a kid is probably the most exciting thing.
Q: Are we going to see the car more than once, or is it like a one-off thing?
A:You will see many cars! I’m not willing to answer that at this stage, but I will tell you that you will have a wide and also surprising range of vehicles to make some trouble with.
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