IO Interactive Reveals How They're Fixing James Bond Games | 007 First Light

0:04What's good everybody we are here at IOI Access here at Summer Games Fest here for Summer Games Fest 2026 and I'm here with two of the amazing team from IO to talk about First Light which I am having so much fun with and having a blast with. Can you give the folks at home your names and your titles for what you do at the studio? Absolutely. My name is Mattias, and I work as a principal level designer on First Light. Yes, and hello. I'm Hilde Sunda. I'm the lead environment artist at the 007 game. Perfect. So I'm going to start off with you to talk about, of course, the work that you did on the game, which I think is stunning.

0:45It is one of the most beautiful games I've seen in a very long time. It is speaking to so many parts of the nostalgia of the series. you're speaking to the kind of future of this new bond in so many different ways talk to me a little bit about what it's like to kind of reimagine what this world is going to be for this character that is iconic in so many different ways first of all thank you for all the nice words um i have an amazing team we have amazing art direction and concepts so we do collaborate a lot even with writers when we try to find all the details in the game and yeah and getting the bond franchise is since we're used to doing hitman uh we uh but it's very different so with all the driving we have done here it's a faster pace in hitman you walk around a lot right but this is more story driven game with a little bit of creativeness where you can go some different routes but you always end up in the same time no same place and then with all the cinematics we have and everything it's just been a little bit of a bigger challenge i think a lot of folks when they're thinking about the world of bond there are so many different spaces that you're trying to occupy as a player and also trying to stay as true to the the story and the world that we all kind of have a idea of what a bond game kind of feels like and looks like in those ways the locations uh we did want a lot of contrast right so i think also for the people that are fans of of bond the movies and the books uh he does travel around a lot right so sometimes he is uh in this like very luxurious places that i myself really like to you know because i'm really into like interior details and all those things um so we have vietnam that is a you know a super nice uh luxury resort where um some place where a lot of people are not able to visit right so that's one of the locations that we have had where um we wanted to feel good for the player to go there and explore how it feels to be in that type of like um nice resort and you can walk around more and explore a little bit and i don't want to make too many spoilers but it's one of those where we wanted you to feel that you know like the more luxury high class the bond also is right while mauritania is a very probably the biggest contrast we have to to vietnam yeah um or one of them whereas it's uh sand and uh dirt than in vietnam in a nice way yeah uh it's rougher right it's rougher i think it's very classy for for James Bond to do boat.

3:32Yeah. So he's not afraid of getting a little bit, you know, his hands dirty and destroys and stuff here and there. And then he also really likes to keep it like super nice and classy. And in Vietnam, we have the bow tie moment where you learn how to, maybe I shouldn't suppose, but you know, yeah. So it's that contrast we are after. And we wanted to like, have you feel like Bond that way. So you get a bit of boat. Yeah. It feels like, I mean, And that's classic Bond of being able to be in the slums in one moment and in a five-star hotel in the next, right? Which is super cool. Our world is maybe a little bit more elevated than the real world.

4:11Yeah. Which I guess it's also like that in the movies, right? Yeah. It's fancy, as they say. Matthias, I'd love to talk to you about, you know, gameplay is fantastic in so many different ways. Again, both of you having Pedigree working on the Hitman series and pulling some elements of, you know, what you've learned from that experience into this game. But this game feels very different in the way that it kind of comes across, not only in the way that you're balancing the stealth elements, the kind of fisticuff moments, the gunplay. How was it kind of balancing all of those pieces together to kind of bring this bond to life?

4:50Hitman is a very slow game. it's it's a game where you are taking your time setting up the perfect execution it's a game where you're pretty much as a player you're in control of the pacing yourself right like you decide when to strike and then disappear but mastery and all that stuff right like that is hit man james bond that is not usually the case yeah like not always at least it's a cinematic story-driven action blockbuster game, right? And it should be that. So that comes with those expectations. So we will have those moments where we sort of just grab the player's hand and now you're coming along for the ride, right?

5:33Like it's a cinematic action set piece, maybe high octane car chase, all that stuff that you expect. Or it's just an emotional cinematic or character defining moment where you learn how to tie a bow tie, all that stuff, right? So we have that, But then we also let go of the player's hand sometimes where we say, hey, now it's up to you. We go wider, like we're more open. It's up to the player to find their way forward. But still with this sort of forward momentum in mind, you're not going to spend a lot of time finding the solution or being slow. You are playing James Bond, right? Like it's more action heavy.

6:12It's more like pacing is faster generally across the game. and yeah we infuse these open spaces where you have social gameplay with more dangerous more sort of yeah now it's uh you're in a space where you have to uh take out some bad guys and the team did a fantastic job on that i think the thing that i that i think about every time i play it as a fan of both series has been i'm very much the person who will take way too long to finish a Hitman mission. Yeah. There is no way too long. It's fine. It's up to you. When I stream it, people are like, you're taking way too long. Oh, really? Because I am slow and I'm like, how do I get that person directly to the thing that I want them to do?

6:58Yeah, that's the thing. But what I love on First Light is that there is that balance that feels like my hand isn't being held, which I love, but I'm being routed in really smart ways to get to the solution of finding my way through a problem and giving me tools that I'm able to use both mechanically in the ways that Bond feels and the gadgets that he's been given, but also those small intricate kind of details of just like eavesdropping, which is a really cool mechanic in the game where you're picking up things from the world in that way. How did you all kind of think about, and when you were thinking about those pieces, of like how do you make that kind of emergent gameplay feel smart and make the player feel smart while kind of learning through the process of playing a level.

7:43Yes, good. It's all, you know, you have a plan. You have all of the mechanics that you need to use to create the missions. And then you might have a paper design. You start working on the level. And you do white boxing and start putting all the pieces together. And then you play it and you play it again. you test it on someone else and you do a lot of iterations uh scratch that in with that it's it's a long process of going back and forth uh really it's uh it's not like yes the first plan worked out no no it's it's a lot of uh iterations to get things right um but i think one thing that that we try to do is to formulate the problem to be clear on what you need to do like you have a clear goal so the player knows what to do and what to look for so if we can succeed with that like ah i need to do that thing if we can get there then then we are sort of home like then then the player feels safe because they know what to do what to look for um and uh that can sometimes be really hard you need good writing good presentation all that stuff but we have good writers yeah that can make things sound good and not too gamey.

9:06Yeah, yeah. Did you have a favorite kind of mechanic to work on that really was something that was challenging in the beginning and then you were like, oh, we nailed that thing. We figured out and got across that challenge and that made it into the game. I do like the eavesdrop mechanic in a way because it's very discreet, very like here is a thing. If you listen in, you're going to get something to make the game move forward, right? And it feels spy-y and bond-y, right? Yeah. but I want to talk a little bit about our combat and our shooting I think that has took a while before we got there but the way it's made is you're sort of drained on ammo you don't have a lot all the time that drives the player we don't want the player to stick in a cover and pop up and shoot and then go down, right?

10:03And so, no, no, you have to run around. You have to go forward and take out the enemy and get some more ammo and keep you on your toes. That feels really good. Because I'm sort of a cover. Sure. I like to sit there and blah, blah, blah. But when it clicks, you're not supposed to do that. Then it feels really good. All right, I got two quick, real fast questions. Hildi, this one is for you. If you had your druthers, if you could put another location into a space that you really love, that you would be like, this would be really cool for a James Bond mission, where would you put it? A new location, like a new...

10:47Anywhere in the world, anywhere on the planet that you were like, oh, I would think this would be really cool to put a James Bond mission in. I would put it in Norway, because I'm from Norway, and I would do a ski. hot up in the mountains with a lot of snow and just majestic environments and uh yeah all right all right because i i feel like that's also very bondy yeah it's uh you know so yeah okay yeah and some ice uh on like a lake with some ice where you know yeah you have to jet ski on the ice or something drive on the ice or whatever yeah the last last question is uh do you have a favorite bond movie they have one that is your favorite casino royale oh yeah because i just i love evergreen i love uh mass makers and um yeah good choice yes yeah you got through too yeah i need your answer as well do you have a favorite casino royale i'm sorry that's how we are yeah i'm a fan of roger moore yeah like i think yeah i like his quirky his charm uh-huh So as a Bond character, I like Roger Moore a lot, actually.

11:56But I think I like Casino Royale as a movie. It's a pretty dark love story, actually. And it's good. I love it. I love it. Sorry, Pierce Brosnan. You didn't get any love. Sorry. It's not my fault. I didn't say it. Thank you both. He's okay. No. We love you, Pierce. We love you, Pierce. Thank you both for hanging out with me for a little bit. I'm a big fan. Again, congratulations. on the game is selling our hotcakes. We heard that the numbers were even higher than shared initially on social, and I'm just excited for everything that's coming next for you all. Thank you again for spending time, and everybody at home, we have more Summer Games Fest coming to you very, very soon.

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