I've been a Hitman fan since Agent 47 escaped the institution and ragdolled his first kill down a staircase. Ragdoll physics were cutting edge back when the franchise started. Around the same time, cutting edge for James Bond meant remotely piloting a BMW with an Ericsson phone... but technology and expectations move on. And I'm happy to report that 007 First Light moved on too... in all the right ways.
The game was a birthday gift from my family and I sunk a solid 24 hours into it over the past two weeks and don't regret a single one. Early on, IO Interactive's fingerprints are everywhere... the in-game models, the HUD prompts, the way you creep through shadows and quietly fold enemies like laundry. Hitman: Codename 007 energy basically. I half expected a targets screen and a Silent Assassin rating... but it evolves.
Early in the game, I got spotted breaking into the Grand Carpathian Hotel. A guard clocked me, called for reinforcements and suddenly I'm facing four baddies with bad intentions. That's a death sentence in a Hitman game. But the combat here felt surprisingly intuitive. A few well-timed blocks, a grapple or two, a coffee mug applied directly to the forehead, and I was through. This game isn't about cosplaying as housekeeping to sneak past a chokepoint. It's much more than that. It's espionage as a living, breathing puzzle... uncover the plot, identify the players, raise the stakes before someone else does. And stakes do get raised.
Without spoiling too much: First Light is the story of Bond earning the 007 moniker. You start as a Royal Navy aircrewman dropped into the middle of an op that immediately goes sideways. Bond — through skill, luck, and sheer stubbornness, saves what's left of the situation and gets fast-tracked into the newly revived Double-O training programme. From there you meet M, Q and Moneypenny for the first time, and watch these relationships form from scratch. The versions of these characters that you'll spend an entire movie franchise with begin here.
By the endgame, Q's full arsenal is yours. Jetpacks. Aston Martins. An electrified phone box. Classics. There are homages and callbacks woven throughout, and I'll definitely be down a YouTube rabbit hole at some point to catch everything I missed... because there's a lot going on.
Which is the one area where First Light differs most from IOI's DNA. In Hitman, you get a target and a sandbox, and you decide how you'll complete the mission. First Light has a story to tell. So some areas stay locked until you hit specific mission beats. Some set pieces pry the weapons and gadgets out of your hands entirely and tell you to watch this scene unfold. I can see that rubbing a few purists the wrong way. It shares more DNA with Hitman Absolution than with the World of Assassination trilogy, if I'm being honest.
But I'm genuinely OK with that. This felt like a Bond film... one of the good ones. The ones you'd actually recommend.
There are story threads left dangling at the end, clearly pointing at something more... whether that's DLC or a full sequel is TBD. A roadmap of Year One content has already been confirmed, including a new mission and a New Game+ mode, so I'm not done yet. And after a popular launch like this (I can honestly say I encountered zero bugs), I'd be surprised if their licence to thrill has been revoked just yet.
For me, this was a great game. Not the best one... Goldeneye still holds that crown. But I'm excited to see what IOI does next with this and the Hitman games now they've flexed some of these new action movie muscles.
A solid double-0 eight out of double-0 ten.
Played it? Loved it? Want to rank all the James Bond games?
