007 First Light Review Roundup: A Hitman-Uncharted Hybrid That Works

IO Interactive's 007 First Light is out, and the verdict from critics is that the Hitman studio has actually pulled this off. Reviews are landing in the generally positive range, with most outlets pointing to the narrative and Patrick Gibson's take on a young James Bond as the reasons to show up.

The setup, in case you missed the marketing cycle: this is an origin story. Gibson plays a Bond who hasn't earned the double-0 yet, and the game charts his recruitment into MI6. Lennie James is in the supporting cast. Polygon notes that the traditional tutorial has been swapped out for a training montage, which is the kind of structural decision that either lands or gets mocked relentlessly. By most accounts, it lands.

Mechanically, this is exactly what you'd hope a Bond game from the Hitman studio would be. Polygon describes the gameplay as stealth lifted from IO's own playbook, stitched together with action setpieces that owe a clear debt to Uncharted. Push Square highlights the sandbox missions across Slovakia, Mauritania, Vietnam, and London — the globe-trotting checklist Bond fans expect, structured in a way that lets you actually approach objectives more than one way.

Where reviewers diverge is on the technical side. Crashes and frame rate drops come up in more than one writeup, which is the part where we all wait to see whether IO patches it in two weeks or two months. The studio has a decent track record with post-launch support on the Hitman trilogy, so there's reason for cautious optimism. Cautious being the operative word.

The bigger picture worth noting: licensed games used to be a graveyard. The bar for a Bond game has historically been GoldenEye, a 1997 N64 title, and not much else. That First Light is being discussed as a competent stealth-action game on its own merits — rather than graded on the licensed-game curve — is the actual story here.

This one's for people who liked the Hitman reboot trilogy and wanted a version of it with a stronger central character and more linear setpieces. If you bounced off Hitman because the sandbox sprawl felt aimless, First Light apparently tightens the screws. If you were hoping for a pure third-person action shooter, you're going to find the stealth sections slower than you'd like.

The real test comes in three months, when we'll all find out whether anyone is still playing it or whether it's joined the rest of our half-finished campaigns on the hard drive.