On 007: First Light's ending and what comes next ► Ludology Now!

As someone who has been playing the Hitman series since the original game, as someone who played Kane and Lynch: Dog Days even after playing the first Kane and Lynch, as someone who reviewed both Hitman 3 and the Freelancer update for Hitman: World of Assassination, as someone who has spoken to multiple IO Interactive developers over the years, as someone who was asked to create and subsequently delivered three special Hitman Contracts a sponsored season, and as someone who has read pretty much all of Ian Fleming’s books and seen all the James Bond movies, I have been looking forward to playing 007: First Light for quite a long time now.

The game is good. It’s probably the best James Bond video game made so far. It’s absolutely the most accurate on-screen representation of Bond yet. If that’s all you came to see, I whole-heartedly recommend it, with perhaps the caveat that it will be slightly more Uncharted and slightly less Hitman than you may be picturing in your mind, but at the end of the day that’s fine, and it’s the best story IO Interactive has ever written.

Good? Good. Let’s get into it.

Full spoilers for 007: First Light below

It’s SPECTRE, right? The mystery organization Isola works for? The one who is better than MI6 at hiding their footprints? It has to be SPECTRE. But should we see SPECTRE already, in the second game? If we do, it won’t be until at least halfway, maybe even two-thirds of the way through. We need a decoy villain first.

I predict a time jump of at least two to three years, maybe even three to four. It depends on the development time of the sequel, which I imagine will be set in whatever year it releases, much like how 007: First Light is set in 2026. This gives MI6 time to rebuild — to move their office to a brand-new location, maybe — and time for Bond to get one or two offscreen missions under his belt. This would allow for him to have a bit more experience and also for the writing team to make fun callbacks to offscreen events, which, as an author, I can tell you is always both helpful and fun.

We’ll probably ditch most of the AI stuff; God willing that’ll happen in real life between now and then. Other than that, and what’s been previously mentioned, the plot will be pretty wide open. There’s no sense predicting what kind of original villain and plan the developers will come up with. I enjoyed the large blond twins, Damien and his gold mask, Webb, and I’m sure they’ll come up with something fun.

More than anything else, I’m glad this iteration of Bond treats (at least some) of the events of the old movies as canon MI6 00 missions from the past. Despite the SPECTRE looming over it all, I don’t really expect to see people like Jaws or Oddjob, or objects like the GoldenEye satellite or Moonraker laser, as actual plot points. I assume, and I hope, that whatever form the main villain of the next game takes, it will continue to be at least as unique as Damien, the twins, and Webb. I’m fine if we reboot SPECTRE, but that’s as far as it should go.

What do we think IO Interactive will change regarding 007: First Light’s criticisms? Surely the Hitman of it all will be expanded — we can expect slightly larger and longer free-roaming portions, perhaps less ‘follow the path’ ledge climbing sections, a slightly tighter driving feel, new gadgets, maybe the ability to take more Q-Watch attachments in the field. God, please just give us the ability to take all of our gadgets into the field at once. You know how Psychonauts has all those mind powers you can use WHENEVER YOU WANT but only allows you to map four of them at a time? Just do that with the gadgets. Don’t make me choose a soldier to leave behind when the options are Missile Pen, Watch Laser, Smoke Bomb, and Poison Dart. All four are precious to me.

I am aware there are other ‘criticisms’ of 007: First Light on places like Twitter. Those are idiotic, irrelevant, and not worth addressing or even this sentence itself

Other predictions I feel should wait until we see how IO Interactive handles this whole TACSIM thing. I see wisps of what Hitman’s Escalation missions and Contracts and Freelancer do, and I want it to happen even more than I want a 007: First Light 2 or 007: Second Light or whatever new title the writers come up with. There’s a real opportunity here to just deliver James Bond missions periodically every few months if the demand is there, which is why I’m incredibly happy to see the news that 1.5m copies of First Light were sold on, like, Friday.

Is that being greedy? Is that asking too much of the developers, of the men and women at IO Interactive? I don’t know. I’d love to talk to them again about it. I should reach out. I should remove this paragraph before this column is published.

There are hard hurdles for the next James Bond game after First Light. Giving him friends, a mentor, this humanized him, helped players to see different sides of the character. Those people are all dead now, and trying to fit someone else into those roles would just feel hollow. This leaves the writers with a few options, some of which are better than others.

We could invent entirely new characters for this story and have them become close to Bond. This is the easiest and least desirable answer. Obviously this will happen with a new villain, a new love interest, and a few new ancillary NPCs, but none of them should try and slip into the role Greenway or any of the recruits occupied.

Most likely, we will amplify existing surviving characters. The most important person whose fate was left somewhat undecided is Moneypenny, who is quite assuredly alive considering she was left by Bond in Q’s care, who I fully believe can do literally anything. She will return, as will Q and M.

Who else? The bald man with the dead friend whose name I cannot remember, he’ll be back, and I imagine he’ll take a larger role. Same with Basil from Accounting — I could see him getting a promotion after all of this, if he’s as good at his job as he thinks he is.

I think we’ll see Cressida again. Her wealthy family could perhaps help with the MI6 rebuild and re-image (after all the leaks, I’m sure the public isn’t too happy) in exchange for her getting a desk job. Perhaps Ponsonby — an excellent reference I wasn’t expecting — will be replaced by Moneypenny and then Cressida becomes the voice in your ear, Batman Oracle-style. [Is this an ableist trope? Genuinely asking]

I’m so happy IO Interactive nailed this. I hoped they would, and I thought they would, but I remember the Kane and Lynch: Dog Days of the past. I remember the reception to Hitman Absolution. This company has taken chances and stood their ground and been bought and sold and bought again and then became independent, from Square Enix of all people, to great success. As a fan, as a friend, I’m proud of them, I’m happy for them, and I can’t wait for what comes next.

And, if you are an IO Interactive employee and would like to discuss the future of this franchise further, feel free to contact me.