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Welcome to James Bond week on Xbox! 007 First Light is officially arriving today in early access (and tomorrow for everyone else), and I've been fortunate enough to play it on Xbox Series X over the past couple of days.
There hasn't been time to put a full review together — our Xbox code landed just before the bank holiday weekend here in the UK, and I've only put around three hours into the Xbox version so far. We'll still have a full review roundup here on Pure Xbox very soon though, so this feature is just meant to provide some initial first impressions.
It might still be early days for me, but I'm really enjoying what 007 First Light has to offer, and therefore I thought I'd break it down into five things I'm loving about the game after just a few hours. I'll briefly touch on a couple of negatives at the bottom of the article as well, so stick around for those if you're interested. Let's go!
1. It Doesn't Just Feel Like Hitman In A Bond Skin
I think my biggest concern going into 007 First Light was that it would feel exactly like the recent Hitman games (considering it was developed by the same studio), but with a thin 007 layer over the top of it. Instead, it feels like they've cherry-picked elements from the Hitman games such as the focus on stealth, locating targets in giant crowds of people, and offering multiple ways to go about a mission, and then combined it with an action-adventure vibe that not only feels Bond-like, but is reminiscent of games like Tomb Raider and Uncharted as well.
The opening mission alone reminded me quite a lot of TR and Uncharted. There's platforming where you're hanging from ledges, sequences where you're sprinting through big explosions, and quick-time events where you need to think on your feet. The slower moments are where the Hitman vibe starts to take over, and even though I'm only a few hours in, it already seems like they've found a good balance here.
2. The Training Sequences Are Well Stitched Together
Once you get past that initial mission, you'll spend a fair bit of time training in Malta with MI6, and this is one of the most enjoyable "training" segments of a game I can recall. Not only is there a lot of story development during the cutscenes, but your training is essentially split into a montage sequence where you're constantly switching between different tasks. There are platforming challenges, driving challenges, stealth challenges, combat challenges... and you're never given much room to breathe as you jump from one to the other. It's very cool!
And of course, the overall goal here is to teach you the ropes of how all the controls work, which it does a mostly good job of. There's quite a lot to think about in terms of combat and gadgets in particular — you can affect the environment in all sorts of ways to lure enemies to their demise — so these practice opportunities during the training missions are much-appreciated without overstaying their welcome.
3. Q Branch Acts Like A Fun Mid-Mission Hub
It seems like MI6 headquarters and specifically Q Branch acts as a mid-mission hub of sorts (at least early on), where you return to speak to the likes of Q and Moneypenny while also learning of new gadgets. Everything about the environment here looks great, and Q Branch is brimming with detail — you can talk to people, engage with the various experiments taking place, and even cause a bit of chaos by breaking a couple of things if you feel like it.
The two gadgets I've obtained so far are a watch that allows for hacking (very Watch Dogs-esque) and a phone that discreetly shoots at someone causing extreme nausea, both of which have already come in handy for distracting enemies in humorous ways. I'm sure there's more to come!
4. Gameplay Allows For Plenty Of Variation
I touched on this before, but it does seem like there's a nice balance here between stealth and action. If you want to, you can play this like Hitman — hide in the tall grass, cause distractions that make enemies move to a certain location, and then quietly take them out without anybody noticing. Alternatively, there are situations where it makes more sense to charge at an enemy and use hand-to-hand combat to eliminate them with force. You can play this however you want, and it does feel like if you're not big on stealth, you'll still be given some leeway depending on the situation.
And yeah, the combat feels good. It's mostly hand-to-hand stuff in the early hours, but there's a good amount of depth to it, featuring the ability to counter, dodge, throw, charge, back your opponent up against a wall, and ultimately take them down. The minimal gunplay I've experienced has felt pretty good so far, and again there's some added depth in the ability to even shoot guns out of your enemies' hands if you aim in the perfect location.
5. Performance Mode Looks And Runs Great On Xbox Series X
I've played the entirety of my three hours with 007 First Light on Performance Mode, which is the default option that runs at 60 frames per-second. A recent Digital Foundry interview revealed how reaching 60FPS on Xbox Series X and PS5 was apparently "tricky", but I haven't noticed any major issues with it so far. It should be noted that I'm using a VRR-supported display (meaning any frame drops won't look as severe), but the only drops I've actually seen have been in cutscenes, with smooth gameplay in-between.
And it's not like it hasn't been pushed hard either. The opening mission gets pretty hectic towards the end, and you can see how many people are crammed into the nightclub in the image above, but I still haven't noticed any gameplay drops. The only thing I'll say is that, in the midst of a heatwave here in the UK, my Xbox Series X is getting pretty darn hot playing 007 First Light, to the point where the fan noise is becoming quite noticeable too.
So, those are my five things I'm loving about 007 First Light on Xbox Series X so far! In terms of the negatives, they're only minor things — I think some of the voice acting is a little inauthentic-sounding at times (nothing crazy, just noticeable with certain characters more than others), and the overall story hasn't really gripped me yet. I also don't love how an early mission requires you to "stick close" to someone, but then they don't even question your behaviour if you make it too obvious. Nitpicky, I know!
The main thing I want to put across is that I was planning to buy 007 First Light regardless, and now that I've had three early hours with it, I know I would have been happy making that decision. Who knows where it's going to go from here, but if the rest of the adventure is as good as this, it'll end up being one of my favourite Bond games ever.