While developer IO Interactive has made it a point to state that 007 First Light will be quite different from what the studio has previously done with Hitman, it has now also revealed that the upcoming James Bond game will feature some of the biggest missions that it has ever made. In an interview with GamesRadar, art director Rasmus Poulsen spoke about some of the bigger areas that players will get to explore in their missions through 007 First Light.
Talking about introducing players to the idea of playing James Bond, Poulsen spoke about the big world that lets players just take in the experience of the world and then figure out how they want to tackle their missions.
“The drive in… It’s about giving you that calm, story-driven introduction to the world, where we’re inviting you to roleplay James Bond, experience and simply take in the world, and form your own expectations of the mission at hand,” he said.
Talking about the mission showcased during Gamescom, Poulsen also pointed out how the level will invite players to come up with their own solutions to problems, owing in large part to the fact that the map will be big enough to allow players to roam around and make use of just about every gameplay system on offer in 007 First Light.
“When you arrive, we dive into much more familiar territory from an IO perspective and from an audience perspective, where we have this chateau laid out before you, which then has in it everything from social gameplay up to the larger areas where you are free to roam around and utilize the width of the gameplay that we have to offer,” explained Paulsen.
As for just how big some of these missions will end up being, Paulsen said, “I would say some of the missions in the game are the largest we’ve done in our history in terms of measurements.”
It is worth noting that, while IO Interactive has a history of making large levels with intricate moving pieces that all form greater overarching systems for players to overcome, as was the case with the last three Hitman games, the studio is typically more known for the density of its levels. The fact that 007 First Light aims to mix the density along with a larger scale would indicate that the studio has been quite ambitious with its upcoming title.
Director Jonathan Lacaille had previously spoken about IO Interactive’s approach to level design in 007 First Light, especially when it came to balancing out the more open-ended game design from the Hitman games with the more set-piece oriented nature of more linear titles.
“It’s either or,” Lacaille said, referring to action-packed gameplay and Hitman-styled systemic gameplay. “IOI has a pedigree, and that fits really well on IP, so we are leaning into that, of course. But that would not tell the full story of who Bond is.”
007 First Light is coming to PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and the Nintendo Switch 2 on March 27. For more details, check out how the game’s melee combat and gadgets will work.
