{"id":211228,"date":"2025-06-24T19:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T19:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/211228\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T19:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T19:55:09","slug":"first-amazon-james-bond-is-video-game-character-in-007-first-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/211228\/","title":{"rendered":"First Amazon James Bond Is Video Game Character in 007 First Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe first new James Bond<\/a> under the complete ownership of Amazon<\/a> MGM Studios will make his debut in 2026, and he is young, brash, has a robust origin story and a mysterious scar on his right cheek \u2026 and is a playable character.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe future of the James Bond film franchise is still being written (Amy Pascal and David Heyman are hard at work on that<\/a>), but the next chapter of James Bond the IP will begin next year, in what will be the first project to feature the iconic character since Amazon stunned the world by buying out control<\/a> from Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2026, the Danish video game publisher IO Interactive will release 007 First Light, a new video game franchise starring a wholly original version of Bond. It\u2019s a big deal, not just because it is the first new Bond to be released under Amazon, and the first new version of the James Bond character since Daniel Craig starred in Casino Royale in 2006, but it will also be the first major James Bond game to be released in 15 years, since 2010\u2019s 007: Blood Stone (which featured a digital likeness of Craig as Bond).<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd it is being developed by IO, the publisher behind the Hitman franchise, one of the biggest pieces of video game IP in history.<\/p>\n

\n\tHakan Abrak, the CEO of IO Interactive, tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview that the there is \u201ca lot of pressure\u201d to deliver, given both his studio\u2019s track record, and the legacy of James Bond the character.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBond is a very cherished and important IP, and a lot of people have grown up with that,\u201d he says. \u201cIt does mean a lot to a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course video games<\/a>, like films, take years to make, and First Light is no exception. The company announced its plans to develop the game in late 2020, so most of the game\u2019s progress has been with both Amazon and the Broccoli family\u2019s EON Productions as its partners. Abrak says that the change in ownership has had little impact on the game\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think the most important thing to say here is that I\u2019m really happy that the character and the story and all that is unchanged,\u201d Abrak says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been having a really good collaboration with MGM and with EON and now Amazon MGM, we\u2019ve had a strong vision, both for the story and for the character, and what we wanted to achieve with this project, and how we want to touch people\u2019s hearts out there. That vision has been supported.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat means crafting an entirely new James Bond, one that will feel \u201cright\u201d to fans of the franchise, while also being fresh to younger consumers that may be more familiar with Agent 47 from Hitman.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s very unusual for us to work on another IP, this is the first time,\u201d Abrak says. \u201cBecause of our pedigree and our history, it\u2019s extremely important for us to put a part of ourselves into our creations. It\u2019s extremely important that we can put our fingerprints into it, because that just gets your creative juices going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe result is a Bond that is young and brash, with a cutting sense of humor, but also an optimism and naivet\u00e9 that might surprise fans of the franchise.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe is not a completely perfectly cut diamond from day one. He\u2019s not a Bond that is completely on top of his game yet, he\u2019s not very well versed in the tuxedos and martinis yet,\u201d Abrak says. \u201cIt\u2019s something that he is being introduced to, this rough world of espionage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHitman, in many ways, was the perfect test case. The protagonist of that franchise, Agent 47, is an assassin for hire, but the skills he uses certainly rhyme with what Bond is known for, even if there are some significant differences in tone and approach.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Agent 47] is like a chess player. He\u2019s pre-planning his moves. So in making a game where the North Star is an impulsive young man, he\u2019s sometimes maybe reckless, there\u2019s definitely more action, there\u2019s definitely more systems for dialogue, systems for how you interact with with the environment and the world,\u201d Abrak says. \u201cAgent 47 is not a talkative type, he is more like a chameleon, whereas Bond is commenting on things, and a lot of things you feel through the joypad controller is through him, so he\u2019s also talking to you, to the player. So to get to understand his humor, his hopes, his demeanor, those things were different. It took some time for us to hit the British humor, going from the Danish humor to the British humor, and getting that right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first trailer for the game includes other Bond hallmarks, like an Omega watch with a surprise baked inside from Q, and a vintage Aston Martin DBS that appears in a playable car chase.<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, the pressure is on. When 007 First Light arrives next year, it will need to appease both the franchise die-hards and gamers hungry for a AAA title worthy of their time. Given the history of James Bond in the video game community going back to Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64, the pressure is real.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s both heartwarming and encouraging when we teased that IO Interactive is going to have a swing at 007, that the community and fans out there were super excited,\u201d Abrak says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of trust and belief in that, and obviously you don\u2019t want to let them down. You want to make sure that trust, that belief, is delivered upon.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s been so many different interpretations, there\u2019s been so many different Bonds, and they have been keeping the IP attractive and relevant for 60-plus years,\u201d he adds. \u201cThey all came with different things to the table, they all were relevant to their time, geopolitical, cultural things that we\u2019ve been through the years, so they all had impact \u2026 It\u2019s a lot of pressure making something that\u2019s not just going to be mushy or forgettable. It\u2019s something where you need to take some chances. It\u2019s something where you need to make a bet for actually creating emotions in people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the first trailer for 007 First Light, below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first new James Bond under the complete ownership of Amazon MGM Studios will make his debut in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[324,77,627,3943,16,15,1644],"class_list":{"0":"post-211228","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-amazon","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-james-bond","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-video-games"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114740102880668784","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}