IO Interactive says 007 First Light was 'always' supposed to be an origin story — 'We wanted to take that risk and introduce a fresh Bond for the gamers' | Tech Radar
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IO Interactive says 007 First Light was 'always' supposed to be an origin story — 'We wanted to take that risk and introduce a fresh Bond for the gamers'
IOI says the young Bond concept was a "non-negotiable"
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007 First Light game director Hakan Abrak says the game was always planned as an origin story
He says the team pitched to MGM and had ideas for a young Bond story that was a "non-negotiable"
He adds that there were weekly feedback meetings, but IO was always in charge of the story
IO Interactive has confirmed that 007 First Light was always intended to be a young James Bond story, and it collaborated frequently with the franchise owner, Amazon MGM Studios.
In an interview with Tech Radar Gaming at an event adjacent to Summer Game Fest 2026, game director Hakan Abrak discussed the conceptual phase of the game and confirmed that First Light was "always supposed to be a young Bond story," and the pitching process to MGM and Bond IP co-owners Barbara Broccolo and Michael G. Wilson was "massively intimidating."
Abrak recalled the pitching process being in a room decked in old books from James Bond novelist Ian Fleming, a grand piano, and "the atmosphere of history was so thick you could just cut through it."
When he and other IO team members went in to pitch, he remembered the MGM heads came into the room and were "completely silent" before telling the developers to go ahead and pitch.
"We pitch the story, we pitch our approach, and why this would be different from other Bond games," Abrak said. "[They were] very silent, and then Barbara just says, after a while, stonefaced just says, 'I quite like it,' and then the room just erupted right after; [they said] 'These guys are so cool, like they didn't really get it, I was like keeping my cool and whatnot, but deep inside I was like 'phew' that was something."
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The game director did note that he thought IO's initial pitch was "a bit ballsy" and the team had lots of ideas of introducing aspects from Ian Fleming novels, like James Bond's scar, and create a young coming-of-age story "where it's not like he has figured everything out."
Abrak said the team didn't want to recreate a "perfect digital version of Daniel Craig, I love Daniel Craig, but it just wanted to make something that feels original."
"More importantly, what we also told them was that we want to go for the gamers, we want to create a Bond for the gamers," he said, explaining that some young gamers might not have a familiar attachment to Bond like the older generation.
"We [wanted] to take that risk and introduce a fresh Bond for the gamers," he said, "We want to make a Bond for the gamers, not the gamification of a movie. It's difficult [to go there] with non-negotiables, but this was a non-negotiable for us. If we did this, we needed to get this freedom for this approach. So, this was very, very clear from the get-go."
While IO had creative control over the story, Abrak said there was input from MGM, as well as several sessions of casting before Paddy Gibson was cast as Bond. The team also had weekly meetings with Eon Productions, the British film production company that primarily produced the Bond film series.
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"Although the story was written by IO and delivered by us, we got a lot of feedback," he said. "I think we had some affinity, and we had something to start with, like with the Danish dark humor, dry humor, but getting the British humor right, there [was] still some way to go.
"It's been massively helpful, and we're really into it, and I think for the younger generation of Eon creators that we had meetings with, and the artwork from the movies, which [was] attached to it as well, it was very, very exciting for them to get to do, because they were actually making a new one [Bond] from the ground up.
"It was a collaboration; they were very much involved, but it was always IO, doing the story, doing the characters and things, and then getting feedback and working closely."
007 First Light is out now on Play Station 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is slated to launch sometime this year.
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Demi is a freelance games journalist who helps cover gaming news at Tech Radar. She's been a games writer for five years and has written for outlets such as Game Spot, NME, and Games Radar, covering news, features, and reviews. Outside of writing, she plays a lot of RPGs and talks far too much about Star Wars on X.
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