Pretty disappointed in First Light’s gunbarrel. The whole thing is that an assassin’s trying to shoot Bond but he’s able to surprise the guy and shoot first. This doesn’t work very well if it’s very obvious Bond is armed already! Spectre’s gunbarrel was similarly egregious with the visible gun
Its kinda ridiculous how OP the throwing your gun at an enemy is. When you throw it and then do the takedown on them - you’re invincible. So you can just spam gun throwing and takedowns on a large group of enemies and take barely any damage and defeat them all with ease.
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I’ll go against the grain here and say I wasn’t too impressed by this game.
Bond is my favourite film franchise and Hitman is my favourite game franchise, yet I was never too hyped about First Light. It seemed like we had to sacrifice a new Hitman game in order to get a new Bond game, and that always irked me as I’m an entitled sod. It was like if your best friend started dating your mother; you love them both seperately, but having them together? Yikes!
AS A BOND GAME:
This does feel so much like a Bond game, which is, of course, a bonus! There’s some great music, one-liners and oodles of references to previous Bond works. Good stuff!
But why wasn’t there a casino level? Why are these rarely in the Bond games???
LINEARITY:
First Light is an extremely linear game, and this is my biggest issue with it. Instead of having 6 sandbox masterpieces, we have 186 mini-missions. The entire game is basically a 1,000-part step-by-step guide.
It felt like I was playing a direct sequel to Absolution at times, with similar gunplay, animations and ‘area cleared’/‘situation contained’ messages, whilst sneaking around small areas evading security folk. I loathed tiny checkpoints in 2012, and I still loathe them in 2026.
There’s also no replayabilty. Puzzles, like finding a way out of the locked Q Lab, are fun the first time, but there’s no point playing it again as you already know the solution.
GAMEPLAY:
I liked First Light’s sandboxy maps because they offered a tiny taste of freedom. But then, it’s only the illusion of choice as the same conclusions happen whatever you do.
The stealth sections reminded me of Absolution…and being reminded of that mess is never a good thing.
Gunplay was pretty fun and intense…but again limited as you’re given about two bullets. It makes it more tactical, I guess. I also disliked how the game doesn’t let you use a gun at any time. If IO loves anything recently, it’s restricting players! (See also: Freelancer in Hitman)
And what’s with the driving sections where you’re just driving slowly in a straight line!? Erm…
And I also disliked the endless quick-time events which tried too hard to be ‘cinematic’. Press B to stop Bond drowning! Press Y to open a door! Press X to tie a bowtie! Oh, puh-lease!
HITMAN:
I shouldn’t compare this to Hitman, but as it’s basically the same game, I will. Playing First Light, it really does feel like a reskinned Hitman. Plus, many elements are near-identical: Pirate king Bawma was just slum queen Vanya Shah. Aleph was discount Mumbai. The Pearl was a hilly Haven Island. The museum level being used to host a party was just like Paris. The silent assassin Finnish twins were just soyboy 47s. Webb Industries was a rip-off of Kronstadt, etc.
There were a load of times where I was playing First Light and thinking ‘I wish this wasn’t here and was instead in a Hitman game’, which is a mindset I needed to shake, but simply couldn’t.
And First Light has sold well and the game already teased Isola working for a Providence-like shadowry group for the sequel. Will Hitman ever get a new game, or will it be neglected whilst IO’s Bond trilogy walks a linear path towards releases for the next ten years? Whatever happens, I’d choose 47 all day, every day.
STORY:
I really enjoyed the story for the first half (although it can drag). Gibson’s Bond was great and so were the supporting cast.
The villains were okay. But as soon as it was revealed that MI6 was using an AI to control its systems, it was instantly obvious where the story was going. And by the time I got near the end and was using a large AI ball to crush robots, it was so unlike Bond that I zoned out.
VERDICT
I don’t want to sound too negative, because, despite all my moaning, I did thoroughly enjoy most of the game. However, it had deep issues that frustrate me too much to really earn it a higher score. 7/10.
Am I being too harsh, or are there any people who agree with me? Let me know!
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This came up in my feed and I thought it was too funny, tested it out and it works.
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That’s awesome. I always mess around with systems, environments, and restrictions like presented in this scenario… but I didn’t think of doing this! Love it.
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Finally finished the game. My first impressions from the initial gameplay trailer turned out to be accurate. The gameplay really is an explosive mix of iconic action games from the last decade. And that’s awesome. I hope they don’t wait for the release of Project Fantasy and get a sequel into development as soon as possible.
The story isn’t bad, but I hope they’ll pay less attention to high-tech themes going forward. I get that the game is trying to reflect on modern issues, but I’d rather not see the enemies in the sequel be exclusively Boston Dynamics-style products.
Also, I have to give a shout-out to the acting. The characters are the best thing about the game in my opinion. Watching them interact was an absolute pleasure
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So uh…not sure if I’m the only person to notice this but…the prices are a bit wrong.
Now I’m no fancy mathematician, but £59.99 + £19.99 is £79.99, not £69.99, as it probably should be to match the price of the deluxe edition. You’re overcharging on the deluxe upgrade by a full tenner it seems.
Please look into this @IOI_Artjoms. I’m wondering if this is intentional.
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I am 99% sure that is intentional yes. It’s kind of standard practice in the games industry to make combined packages a bit cheaper to entice you to get the more expensive edition.
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That golden helicopter doesn’t pay for itself
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Hakan was the true Bond villain all along.
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What’s even the deal with people hating on hakan?
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Arti said on stream, that it is an intentional choice to make people buy the more expensive product right away.
Ironically, for me it is part of the reason, why I haven’t bought any copy of First Light yet.
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The strategy never works on me at all. I tend to buy the cheaper editions unless I consider the extras are worth the price difference. Cosmetics do not hit that criteria.
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Outside of the whole “CEO Bad” mentality, there were a lot of questionable decisions from the past few years that people ascribe blame to him, rightly or wrongly.
Releasing Hitman: Sapienza Edition. Yeah, that’s warranted.
Ignoring Hitman’s emetic epidemic? Yeah, that’s totally his fault guys.
I’m not really a fan of the practice, it’s just really, and forgive my bluntness, shitty marketing behaviour, that, as you said, entices customers to buy an expensive edition instead of buying the game first, then the extra content. It puts me off buying the deluxe edition because they’re basically making free money for…an upgrade path. Literally money for doing nothing.
No thank you. I’ll buy it as-and-when it’s cheaper, and certainly not on those terms.
If your game is good, then rely on that confidence, and you don’t need to engage in this practice to make extra money. I’m sure IOI will disagree, but this only hurts their reputation (which, when it comes to selling games isn’t great to begin with), not help it.
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Found a laughably bad bug that clearly no one bothered to QA.
In Tac Sim, if you equip the upgrade on the Laser Mine gadget that increases the radius of its blast - its breaks the mine instead and they no longer explode. Making the entire gadget useless. 
This is indeed intended! This is similiar to the Deluxe upgrade on Hitman. It is fairly common to have this setup to make the immediate jump to the Deluxe edition more enticing. I get where you are coming from though.
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This will be adressed in an upcoming patch. 
Little spoiler.
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No spoiler tags?! Rude. 
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