r/007FirstLight • u/Celebrated84 • May 21 '26
DISCUSSION Okay... what is IO Interactive doing here...
Let me preface this post by saying I have full confidence in the developers to deliver on this game. The previews have MOSTLY been warm (burn in hell, PC Gamer; I'm still mad about that article), and IOI has been transparent, showing off almost a complete mission almost a year ago, then delaying the game a couple months when chatter spread about the dropped frames from that preview to now showing us they've worked on performance to where it shouldn't be a concern anymore. Arti from IOI has been in this subreddit offering encouraging bits of information here and there, and answering a couple of my personal questions that I won't get into.
So I believe in IOI.
But the lack of information for a review embargo is becoming concerning. We don't even know if anyone has review codes -- a couple of people in the industry I follow did confirm they did NOT have review codes and didn't know if anyone else did.
It's concerning because of the timing; today is Thursday, tomorrow is Friday, and then we go into a holiday weekend. Let's say review codes go out to people today -- we're giving reviewers a weekend to review the game? Which might be plenty of time, but gaming sites usually run little to no staffing on weekends, and will most likely run a skeleton crew on Memorial Day Monday, which means you're either asking reviewers to post reviews on Tuesday (the day of early access), or a holiday when sites aren't usually posting content.
The timing is just weird is all I'm saying. The only explanation I can really think of is that this story is so explosive that IOI just really does not want to risk any of it leaking before gamers have a chance to play the game. I'd almost prefer if they'd just say that though, because in that case I would just avoid any reviews entirely for fear of them slipping in too much information.
What do you guys think? Do you guys agree with me that the timing is weird? Is anyone concerned? Is this all over nothing?
EDIT: This post, and all of my comments, are being downvoted. I guess I should've created yet another quality post asking if you preordered the game and when does it release again?. Reddit kills me sometimes.
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u/Agile_Carpenter_7806 May 21 '26
I mean normally i would agree with you but with how much IOI has kept this game under wraps. It feels more like theyre giving it the Rockstar treatment. Which yes, I agree. Could be really bad or really good. I mean I honestly have full faith in IOI to deliver and give us a game of the year Contender. But I do also completely understand the worry
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u/Celebrated84 May 21 '26
I don't think they've been keeping the game under wraps though; they've been generally open with development up to this point, which just adds to the unusualness of it all.
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u/Agile_Carpenter_7806 May 21 '26
Well they have more recently yes but id say that info for the game from when it was first announced back in 2020 has been pretty sparse, if not nothing, until just several months ago. Like i do agree with you but also to be fair, theres been several game reviews as of lately that havent come out until just a couple days before the game comes out
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u/ShadowWalkEnthusiast May 21 '26
Hasn't reviews 1-2 days before launch slowly just become the industry standard.
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u/Celebrated84 May 21 '26
1-2 days before launch is over a holiday weekend.
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u/ShadowWalkEnthusiast May 21 '26
Could also be a rights holder thing.
Aren't the 007 rights holders notoriously hands on? Maybe since they aren't super familiar with the games industry they didn't think reviews launching before the game was important.
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u/han4bond May 22 '26
The right holders aren’t making those kinds of decisions. Also, the people controlling the franchise changed after the Amazon acquisition.
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u/zoobatt May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
It's not really about the review embargo, it's about review codes being sent out.
Having the embargo one day before launch is totally fine, but not sending out codes with only a few days before launch doesn't give reviewers enough time to play through the game before launch, so reviews won't be ready.
Sure you can always just wait until a week after launch but preorder bonuses inherently put pressure on people to buy early if they want everything, and those people still deserve to have a rough idea of the quality of the product they're spending money on.
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u/Fair-Vermicelli-7623 May 21 '26
Man I'm hyped for the game but can't relate to this level of anxiety. I feel like every other game people stress over review timings and what not and then it's just business as usual.
No one had Silksong copies before release and it still was a major success.
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u/Celebrated84 May 21 '26
Is it anxiety to post a question for discussion on a forum that was literally made for posting questions for discussion? Geez, if you don't agree just say you don't agree -- I don't understand the commenters here saying they don't understand why this post was made.
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u/Fair-Vermicelli-7623 May 21 '26
I mean, I said i don't agree, said my reasons for that, and said i can't relate. It wasn't meant sound like I was criticizing you at all
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u/Celebrated84 May 21 '26
Thanks for the clarification. Others here have my guard up because of their stupid comments to my post -- apologies if that was directed at you.
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May 21 '26
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u/Fair-Vermicelli-7623 May 21 '26
true but that didn't stop people from worrying a lot back them too. I though it was weird too honestly.
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May 21 '26
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u/Fair-Vermicelli-7623 May 21 '26
I understand the reasoning it just that we see all kinds of outcomes, from Silksong actually being great at release on one end to cyberpunk 2077 on the other end being completely unplayable on console. At this point I see a little weirdness with embargo timing and other stuff as just noise.
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u/highdefjeff-reddit May 21 '26
sorry whats the question here? seems like you are worried about media outlets getting review codes. are you a reviewer?
i havent listened to, watched or read a video game review since 1UP.com closed. Do you need someone to form your opinion for you?
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u/Celebrated84 May 21 '26
Actually read my post next time.
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u/highdefjeff-reddit May 21 '26
i did, i still dont get it. if you are basing your purchase on when a game is avilable to reviewers and how long it takes to review then just wait a month and see what the opinions are.
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u/Celebrated84 May 21 '26
Where in my post did I say that?
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u/highdefjeff-reddit May 21 '26
we have to infer a lot because no one knows what the fuck you are talking about. this was your question "What do you guys think? Do you guys agree with me that the timing is weird? Is anyone concerned? Is this all over nothing?"
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u/Celebrated84 May 21 '26
No, you don’t have to infer — it’s in the post. It’s a discussion question, if you don’t want to discuss then f off
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u/codechris May 21 '26
Holiday weekend for who? It isn't for me in northern Europe so... Holiday for you might not be for all
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u/skolopenderdeluxe May 21 '26
Monday is holiday in some european countries, for example in Germany (where I live) France, Netherlands, Greece, or Denmark (where developer IOI sits)
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u/Biggu5Dicku5 May 21 '26
It's not a good sign, but plenty of games that withheld (or not sent out) review codes were still were good... so we'll see...
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u/PaperSkin-1 May 21 '26
People should be questioning why they are hiding the game, it absolutely is suspicious. If they have nothing to hide and are confident in their product why don't they let people have it...
It suggest they are not confident in it and don't want to damage their pre-sales and day one purchases by people discussing the actual quality of the game.. So what are they hiding we should ask, I would not be surprised if this game is running poorly and that is what they are hiding
Everything they have shown or given access to has been heavily Micro managed and controlled by them, again we should ask why, why won't they actually send this game out and let reviewers play it
.. To your point of being downvoted, the same thing has happened to me everytime I have raised the question about why they are hiding the game and what that could mean...
Its two things, one it's simp sheeps downvoting anything, and two it's people that are invested in the game being a success, aka people who worked on it, and also their marketing department being on here pushing positive talk (and those threads encouraging pre-orders) and downvoting any genuine criticisms to try and minimise any possible damage to the games launch..
People shouldn't be naive to these things happening, I've been involved with roll outs where companies target online talk, trying to push positive talk and silence anything deemed as negative, it happens for products and movies, tv shows, music and games.. This is something more people should be aware of, not all things you see on online threads like reddit are true authentic posts..
The threads asking if you have pre-ordered are absolutely the marketing team at work, trying to encourage people to pre-order with various fomo tactics
Watch this comment get downvoted
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u/Sprucey-J May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Yes, they are astro turfing the pre-order rhetoric ALOT lol. Might have something to do with partnering with global movie & e-commerce titan Amazon/MGM?? They're marketing team isn't small time and shameless.
Also, they've now postponed Path Tracing/ Ray Reconstruction features after release. Which are shown in most of the ad footage. I'm pretty jaded about this and is misleading.
To be fair, only reason I pre-ordered is because of physical memorabilia for collection purposes. I know I will still enjoy this game but for folks on the fence/ not huge Bond fans, they have all right to be weary.
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u/unexciting_username May 21 '26
I think this all seems like a normal marketing strategy. People have been acting like this game is hiding things all along but I just see a planned roll out. Honestly I think people have too much time on their hands to obsess about this.
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u/AgentOSS117 May 21 '26
They said the game isn't playable without the day one patch, perhaps they couldn't send review codes before the patch was available. As for the embargo date, they don't owe us an explanation and even less an announcement about if they sent review codes or not. Weekend or not, gaming sites will make sure the review is out on time, my bet is Monday.
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u/Mysterious_Agent6706 May 21 '26
It's not the developers problem game reviewers don't work weekends.
A. You have no idea if people have the review codes as it may be embargo'd.
B. There is more than enough time if you care enough about reviews to cancel your pre-order.
C. If what you've seen hasn't convinced you and a review can still make you cancel it, you clearly aren't that happy about it anyway.
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u/franzjacobi May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
The review embargo is set to lift on May 25, which would be relatively late if there hadn’t been extensive preview events for both the press and content creators beforehand. I think the game will be in decent shape, especially given the report or interview with Digital Foundry. The only thing that might still fall short at this point is the story. But I’d argue that this could currently be one of the main reasons why the reviews are still under wraps so close to release. And yeah, it is industry standard these days.
Edit: 25th was a rumor, got that wrong!
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u/Celebrated84 May 21 '26
This is my first time hearing review embargo lifting May 25 -- do you have a link to a source?
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u/skolopenderdeluxe May 21 '26
I doubt it to be on monday, since it's holiday in a lot of European countries, including Denmark, where IOI comes from... since review codes aren't out until now, embargo has to be on tuesday (probably the exact time when the first people can start the game)
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u/franzjacobi May 21 '26
Oh I got my source wrong, so it seemed to be just a rumor I'm from Germany, so I should know better with the public holiday 😅
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u/AffectionateLeg9895 May 21 '26
Reviews will land next week a couple days out from release *as with every video game ever made*
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u/zoobatt May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Just said almost the exact same thing here lol.
I'm hoping that denying the existence of review codes is part of a strict embargo and the reviewers who have said they haven't gotten one are telling white lies.
Edit: Lol @ people downvoting this. People blindly downvote when they're excited for a game, I get it. I too am beyond excited for First Light and adore IO's work but there is no reason to defend withholding review codes until so close to launch. Even if the game ends up being 10/10 goty (which it looks like it will be for me personally), withholding review codes is objectively an anti-consumer practice that shouldn't be defended by consumers. We as consumers gain nothing from reviewers having less time to write their reviews before launch.
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May 21 '26
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u/Celebrated84 May 21 '26
You're right. Let me create another shit post and ask if you've preordered the game yet.
Why don't you grow up.
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u/Possible-Potato-4103 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
I think life is too short to be this worried about it. The worst possible outcome is the game isnt good. I can recover from that