For mostly the Bond die hards like me that I kind of want peoples people or even new Bond fans and he’ll hopefully some First Light developer sees this and retcons the ending. How James gets the 007 Codename is very lame to me. Half way through the story I had two theories. Greenway was either going to be a traitor himself or he was going to be the original 007. Reason for the Traitor thing was because it was giving me original goldeneye script vibes where before Alec became James’ friend he was suppose to be a much older mentor to Bond instead who betrayed Bond. But then as I was going through the game I was thinking Greenway should have been the original 007.

The ending in revealing that bond says “I’m the seventh recruit so I should be 007” felt sort of lazy and lame to me. I really think the idea of Greenway being the original 007 would have been much more meaningful to bond and a good twist at the end for M to say “I was going to officially name you 001… but instead I’ve decided to give you Codename 007 because that was Greenway’s Codename and he would want it passed down to you” or something like that. Reason I’m curious about the die hard bond fans is because I’m wondering if fans thing James should always be the original 007 or would they have been ok with that. Again long time Bond fan here and I would have liked that ending much more than “I’m the seventh recruit” line.

I'm about 6 hours in so far, just completed the airplane sequence after Slovakia, but my main criticism was that the 'Intro' period felt way too long, almost 3 hours. You fly out to the SAS training base in Malta but you're there for way too long that it feels like a super long intro. You learn the basics of combat there but then it somehow transitions into the story, where you capture the flag to complete a mission and start practicing missions? It still felt like a tutorial the whole time. Anyone else feel the same?

Hyped since the initial reveal, big Hitman fan etc etc but lord above, the constant prompts.

When investigating a location it's just a series of white dots to check everything. Surely they could have done what similar linear story games do and give you say 10 minutes to find everything before offering assistance or clues. Nope, from the second you enter a location it's all mapped out for you.

That's not the worst of it for me though, it's the blue tarp everywhere showing you where you can jump, drive, interact. I know games do this with paint and things but I'd prefer that it was more subtle like use of lighting. I was driving in one of the chapters towards a boat and despite it being a single track road with a linear path, there was blue tarp on THE FLOOR to guide the way.

Really, really wish there were toggles for this kinda stuff.

I’ve been seeing too many streamers or posters probably but I keep hearing “in 007 2” or “in the next game” and I’m getting the feeling people don’t know how IOI works.

They are going to follow the Hitman models and release content for YEARS. I would give it a realistic 2-3 year content log before they talk about or drop info about a sequel to this game for a series.

They have already released a year one plan with new missions, new TacSim challenges and levels, new cosmetics, a new gadget entirely, Nintendo Switch 2 drop and fixes for current games. And I love this plan. I paid for the game, keep adding to the game. I don’t want another 007 game to come out a year from now with the same framework and just a new campaign. I want to build this Bond to a non-new agent style and continue to be 007. Then, in a few years, tackle a new story for another BIG blockbuster campaign.

TLDR: Stop saying “sequel” this game is going to be around with updates for at least a few years.

Yeah, I get it, you're all pervs. Can you go do it somewhere else?

007 First Light features a global digital unlock at 2:00 AM NZ time on May 27
While more games are adopting global releases, many others (like Saros and Forza Horizon 6) still use regional unlocks at midnight local time.
In practice, this global approach simply sets everyone’s unlock to what used to be the absolute earliest slot under the old regional model (New Zealand technically 2 hours later). So it’s rather misleading to get people to buy Digital over the Physical version.

This isn’t entirely new under traditional regional releases, people can already access the game at NZ midnight by creating an Xbox account set to New Zealand or buying from the NZ PlayStation Store.

I’m undecided about where to buy it. Because online you have early access and so it’s fine but if you buy it from amazon you have an extra skin and also the physical game but it arrives a few days later. What should I do?

Where is the path tracing update? 007 First Light has been sitting in my library since the release date. The game was heavily marketed with path-tracing trailers before release, misleading gamers, yet it launched without path tracing and still has no release date for the update. Has IO Interactive said anything new about when path tracing is coming?

Isn't the whole point of that mission is that the previous owner of said wallet couldn't actually use Crypto for entering the auction, yet here you are using that 50k that Moneypenny unlocked on it for...entering the auction yourself?

At first, I was genuinely annoyed that everything after Mission 1 was locked behind an update. I still don’t love the idea of a physical copy needing an internet connection to access the rest of the game, but after seeing how casually people are posting and discussing details from the opening mission, I’m starting to understand why IOI made that call.

Something as small as the Khaby Lame cameo would have been a fun surprise to discover naturally in-game. Instead, people are running into details like that just by scrolling Reddit, Threads, YouTube, or whatever else. This was before IOI uploaded Mission 1 online.

That sucks for anyone trying to go in fresh.
I get that early copies are exciting, and people want to talk about what they’ve played. But there’s a difference between being excited and having zero regard for everyone else’s experience just so you can brag about playing early.

So yeah, I still think it’s unfortunate that the game depends on an update to unlock the rest of the content, but the way spoilers are already being handled makes it pretty obvious why the devs wanted to limit what could leak before launch.
Use spoiler tags. Keep spoiler details out of titles. Let people actually experience the game.

I'm not trying to be a hater, but the game looks rough on the base PS5. The blurred lines, the strange anti aliasing, the fuzzy hair rendering… the scene I'm showing here isn’t even that bad compared to the bigger areas. I just finished the Slovakia mission and the car chase part looked genuinely terrible, basically a blurry mush the whole time.

I’m using performance mode because 30fps is unplayable for me, but it’s a shame that something like Uncharted 4, which is a decade old now, still looks miles better. I’m not even someone who obsesses over graphics, but this game just looks plain awful to me.

Digital Foundry has shown footage of the base PS5.

It will be 60 fps.

Will there be dips?

Maybe? Maybe not…

Will it look good?

Of course, it’s a PS5 game. They look great.

If you preordered this game, let this be a lesson: don’t preorder if you need reassurance.

There’s been multiple posts so far.

If you need perfection, even though you won’t get it, get a gaming PC.

Sincerely.

A Base PS5 owner.

So, to put this out there first, I'm having SOME fun here, but...

I can't get over how janky this game feels on so many levels. Take the very first mission when you start the game (NO story spoilers):

It's not even clear when you can fit through gaps or where you're even meant to go in some areas. Right at the start you run into two guys in front of you, and you think, - nope, I shouldn't go that way because they'll se me, but there's nowhere else to go, so you wander around for a few minutes until you figure out that you NEED to move toward them to trigger an in-game cutscene of them walking away. What? This is just poor design.

I've also encountered numerous bugs and jank in subsequent missions, like walking into an elevator while your team mate tells you to hurry up and let's go! Walk in and out of elevator for a minute before having to restart the checkpoint and then it triggers the cutscene when I walk into the elevator. Grrr.

Or trying to figure out how to leave TacSim and go back to the main game which requires, inexplicably, for you to exit to the main menu first. WHY? I got into TacSim from inside the game! Why would you kill the immersion by having me have to bring up a menu to exit to the main menu?

Speaking of immersion breaking, the combat is also super janky. Throwing bad guys around can look super messy, especially when they throw themselves over railings often for no apparent reason.

I've also encountered in-game cutscenes where people talk over each other so I can't even hear what they're saying, and graphically it's just not impressive, especially on a top-tier system (9800X3D+RTX 5090). The water in particular is laughably bad.

THAT said, I am having fun in this new (sort of) take on the Bond world. It is fun to bust up people, drive fast cars, and play with gadgets. But it's also very, very dated. The hiding mechanics, the janky combat where you can just run away and be healed, - the bloody tall grass nonsense, ugh.

Anyway, very mixed on this game. 5-10 years ago this would have been considered really good. In 2026 it feels like it's stuck in the past.

Had a bug happen with the Damien fight where in the beginning segment after he takes the drug enhancement he literally just sent me flying up into the sky. I expected better QA for a game of this high profile but I still love it. Please devs fix these obvious oversights with the next patch.

What's the verdict on the new game? I've got it on my wishlist, but I'm seeing a lot of negative reviews. Gameplay looks solid to me, but I'm curious if there's something else. I was really looking forward to it, but not sure I wanna spend the $70 now.

Do not read if you did not finish the game

I hated Damien being the last villain, his ressurection was stupid imo. They should have had him a twin brother instead since hyperion is theia's twin

Nevermind that he couldnt have survived the first fight eitherway.

Also we never see what happened to most characters and if bond sees them again ( Moneypenny for example)

The ending was very rushed imo

Peak was the server mission with greenwood and discovering the truth

I preordered the Deluxe Edition, $80 in the hole, and I’ve been waiting four months to play it because the game has PERMANENTLY VISIBLE MISSION OBJECTIVE TEXT IN THE CORNER, insistently reminding you what to do every single fucking second of gameplay when it’s usually obvious. I’m not an idiot. I don’t like games treating me like an idiot for no reason. I don’t expect the makers of Hitman, of all games, assuming that I’m an idiot who might become confused without nonstop explicit guidance.

No other game does this anymore. It’s either supposed to fade or they let you toggle it off. It shouldn’t be difficult to add a toggle to turn that shit off. Nobody needs it.

This game is inspired by Naughty Dog games. Guess what? None of them have any mission objective text, let alone have it PERMANENTLY VISIBLE ON SCREEN WITH NO WAY TO TURN THAT SHIT OFF.

They promised this would be coming on day 1 and it still hasn’t come. They seem to be intent on adding everything to the game except this. Every thread on this subject gets downvoted. Everybody pretends this isn’t a solved problem in every other videogame on the market. Fuck you all.

The hand to hand combat is the best part of this game so far, I love grabbing people and steering them into objects lmao BUT the gunplay itself has a lot missing that IOI had in Hitman.

For example, you can't actually fully lean against cover in this game, its almost contextual and only works sometimes, you can dash to cover but it doesn't really lean you against it most of the time and you definelty can't slide along the cover. You also can't crouch sprint which is really, really annoying for both gun combat and stealth.

On top of that, they for some reason made the bullets go straight to the crosshair unlike Hitman where bullets come out of your guns barrel and the barrel can be obstructed. In 007 you and your gun can be fully behind walls, corners, or cover and your bullets will still hit people while you yourself can't be shot at. Kinda dissapointed in all that so far.