Hakan Abrak says 007 First Light adds driving, firefights — 007 First Light Review Embargo
007 first light review embargo lands on a Bond game built from IO Interactive's Hitman habits, but not limited to them. Hakan Abrak says the studio is carrying over stealth and open-ended design while adding driving and firefights that the Hitman series never used.
Hakan Abrak's 25-year Hitman base
For 25 years, IO Interactive has been known primarily for Hitman, and Abrak said that work has helped define the studio's identity. He pointed to the way the World of Assassination trilogy sharpened the team's sandbox-stealth skills, then described 007 First Light as a chance to use that experience in a globetrotting spy fantasy.
“It’s defined many things for us throughout the years, from the technology we’ve been doing to the communities we’ve built,” Abrak said. “When it comes to creating a spy or agent fantasy that travels the world – the globetrotting, contemporary world fantasy – we have spent a lot of hours traversing in that area, which, I think, has given us a certain expertise and know-how over the years.”
Chateau paths and Kensington combat
In the gameplay trailer, Martin Emborg said players infiltrate a chateau, and he framed that section as a classic IO Interactive setup with multiple routes inside. “Whenever we can, we try to open it up; in the gameplay trailer, you have to infiltrate this chateau,” he said. “This is where we try to bring that IOI DNA that we have from Hitman, where you represent it as a way where there are different paths into this chateau, and then you have to go from here.”
The Kensington level goes further. Emborg said it includes several segments with trespassing and combat, and that players can go stealthy, go combat, or choose anything in between. “It’s actually up to you, and all these routes or play-style choices should all be viable and fun to use,” he said.
Bond moves beyond stealth
Andreas Krogh said IO Interactive deliberately kept Hitman-style stealth, environment interactions, and moment-to-moment gameplay in 007 First Light, but also had to build around areas the studio had not done well in Hitman. The practical shift is clear: the new game is more linear, adds set-piece action moments and sandbox creativity sequences, and expects Bond to drive and fight through chaos instead of treating combat as a last resort.
“Obviously, we've had a lot of learnings from our Hitman titles, especially because we knew we also wanted to have some kind of stealth in this game,” Krogh said. “It was very obvious for us to just say, 'Okay, we have a stealth loop in Hitman, and a way of approaching that with environment interactions and the moment-to-moment, second-to-second gameplay that we like and saw users like.'”
“But on the other hand, we knew we had a new game here, with a new protagonist that we knew we had to do some of the areas we weren't good at in Hitman,” he said. That puts 007 First Light on a different path from IO Interactive's last 25 years of work: it still borrows the studio's best systems, but it has to earn its Bond identity in driving, firefights, and more direct action.
