007: First Light looks like it’ll offer the full James Bond experience, as the British secret agent will be dropping quips and bodies when he arrives on PC and console next year. Not just an expert brawler, 007 is also a talented sharpshooter, and that’s an area of the game that developer IO Interactive is investing efforts into perfecting.
While the studio is no stranger to gunplay thanks to the wide variety of firearms that players could wield in the Hitman games, there is a key difference here in how Bond and Agent 47 use guns. “In Hitman we viewed ranged combat as a last resort for most players, which made it fairly hard and for most players something they wanted to avoid,” said gameplay director Andreas Krogh said to PC Gamer via GamesRadar. “This time around, we have a character that invites ranged combat to be a viable option.”
Krogh added that gunplay in 007: First Light is designed to feel fluid and responsive, giving Bond a lethal–and mechanically satisfying–option for when his license to kill is activated. In comparison, using guns in IO’s Hitman games carried significant risks, as being caught using a weapon would typically result in Agent 47 having to face off against a small army of persistent foes. Guns also had handling characteristics in the game that were authentic to their real-life counterparts, as recoil, bullet drop-off, and physically aiming a weapon made it somewhat impractical to use them when you could simply frame an assassination as a freak accident instead.
007: First Light launches on March 27, 2026, for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2, and in case you missed the recent gameplay livestream, you can check out 14 new things we learned about the James Bond game and how IO built some of its biggest levels yet for its secret agent simulator. Preorders are also available now for standard and deluxe editions, as well as a 007: First Light collector’s edition that comes with a golden gun.
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