r/007FirstLight

As an enthusiast of the Ian Fleming novels (Moonraker is my favourite), I must say that IOI got the relationships between the people working at MI6/Q-Lab and Bond spot on.

If you have explored between missions, you might have come across conversations with some NPCs, such as Gary, a Q-Lab technician who is a fanboy of Bond after his Iceland heroics and later gives him emotional support following his loss. Or the Operations accountant, Basil Winters, who simply says, "Iceland," after Bond introduces himself, continuing to list, in a slightly hostile manner, all the property destroyed in the Iceland incident, implying that his job is to account for every single piece of damage caused by Bond and his actions.

There are plenty more opportunities for NPC conversations, like those with Whitlock & Bancroft or Waters from the armoury/shooting range. What I like most of all, is that every environment has LIFE! People are working, sitting in the lounge, talking to each other about behind-the-scenes matters, such as "a vintage spy gadget: a crocodile submersible," which is, of course, a lovely nod to the Octopussy film. There are many more conversations to eavesdrop on, but what stands out are the stories these interactions tell. James and the other recruits aren't merely "inconveniences" or "troublemakers," as Q often portrays Bond in the films. Instead, the relationships feel intimate. Everyone has a job to do, and they do it together—for each other, for King and Country.

It becomes clear that the Q-Lab technicians enjoy their work and are genuinely fond of the field agents/recruits. Q himself plays a significant role in the story. He isn't merely a grumpy yet humorous old chap, but a fully fleshed-out individual with ideas, observations, opinions, feedback, and emotions. Over the course of the story, he becomes someone close to James—and to us, the player.

There is one exceptional piece of writing that especially stood out to me. After a difficult decision is forced upon Bond, the game takes us down to Q-Lab, where we find and speak with Q. The brilliance lies in what I felt—and I suspect many other players did too—when Q says: "Don't do it."

Those three simple words achieved something that many games—and even many films—fail to accomplish. They touched me on a personal and emotional level. I genuinely felt the weight of those words. I felt caught, as though Q knew exactly what I was thinking—which, in turn, felt like he “knew” what James was thinking and planning.

Filling the story with those interactions … or LIFE, for the lack of a better word, allows for the unfolding off events throughout the playthrough to hit harder, solidifying the connection of the player and the characters. That is outstanding storytelling!

Now, why did I mention the books at the beginning?

I love the films. Like most people, I grew up with them. Later, as an adult, I became interested in the source material. That is when my enjoyment of James Bond evolved into a much deeper appreciation—not just for Bond, but for the world created by a former naval intelligence officer, Ian Fleming.

Yes, the books were written in a different era and inevitably reflect attitudes that can make modern readers uncomfortable. And yes, it is fair to say that Fleming often struggled when writing women. Yet he managed to write believable human interactions. His novels are not as action-packed or explosive as the films, but they remain thrilling because even seemingly mundane moments—a game of bridge, for example—are filled with tension and personality. Because of those interactions, Fleming's world feels alive. Like the game, it captures the reader's attention through its characters and atmosphere as much as through its action.

While I have criticised Fleming's portrayal of women, I should also mention the novel: The Spy Who Loved Me, an interesting Bond novel written entirely from a woman's point of view, which I enjoyed immensely. And, of course, there are Fleming's wonderfully distinctive female names. Fleming once indirectly joked, "… I'll never call you Loelia. It sounds like somebody in an indecent limerick", suggesting that female character names should be memorable without becoming ridiculous. My personal favourite remains Galatea Brand, or simply "Gala."

In conclusion, that's why I recommend this game to EVERYONE (who calls themselves a Bond fan). Play it and experience a story that could just as easily have been a superb novel—or a film, for that matter.

Thank you for taking the time to read my two cents on this topic. Cheers!

I was thrilled when Moneypenny told Bond he was going to Vietnam, since I’d spent a fair amount of time there.

But once I arrived at the resort, I can’t help laughing at the accent.

No offense, but they don't sound anything like Vietnamese. If anything, it reminds me of Uncle Roger, that exaggerated Chinese Malaysian/Singaporean accent.

Watch a short Uncle Roger video on YT and you'll see what I mean.

All IOI needs to do is throw in a “Haiyaa” at the end of the dialogue and you’d have a perfect parody.

Which is a shame, considering they already managed to capture that Ha Long Bay vibe in the beginning

A mission based on the upstairs floors of MI6 HQ around where M's office is, similar to the simulator from Die Another Day, would be pretty fun I think. The goal would be to rescue M who is held hostage.

Really enjoyed the black-tie infiltration at the beautiful manor (chess tournament) was one of the best parts, blending in, eavesdropping, using gadgets. Same with the mission out at the nightclub, and the Webb Gala. Really fun and atmospheric. Loved the early training sequence too, it set up the story nicely. Visually it looks great. Enemy AI was pretty wonky but I guess that’s just how it is. I was concerned about the android robots near the end but loved smashing them with that huge wrecking ball.. was awesome and the true clutch of the game. Wish there was a casino mission and an opportunity to actually drive the Valhalla. Overall excellent.. hopefully a new movie comes out soon.

My overall thoughts on this game are that it’s a pretty solid foundation for what I hope will be a much more open and player friendly sequel(s). The story is pretty great and sets itself up well for a sequel with a decent amount of loose ends. As for the individual levels, they were pretty fun on a first playthrough but not nearly as polished as the masterclass levels from Hitman 3. They also proved to be noticeably more flawed as I replayed them to complete all the challenges, and revealed a bunch of fundamental issues I have with the game itself that I hope are remedied in the next entry.

Here are some thoughts I had for each of the main missions (namely the ones that had extra challenges) individually:

Against the Odds (Iceland) - Honestly this is imo a pretty damn near flawless opening level. The place looks and feels great to play in and it’s intimidating as hell on a first playthrough when you’re still learning the controls. Then when you revisit you quickly learn that it’s also extremely easy and you wonder why you were ever scared to begin with. I guess my only complaint is that I wish sticking to the cliff face/dropping down into the ravine after G9 didn’t completely trivialize the mission? Like maybe put one guard near the ravine that you have to sneak past or take out. 

A New Home (London/Malta) - I was a big fan of the look and feel during the training montage section, although I wish the game gave you a bit more control during the sequence so you weren’t spending most of it watching Bond train. The actual mission challenges themselves were pretty fun too. The only one I took issue with was the “Monroe’s Way” challenge where you have to take out every guard in the training arena before grabbing the flag. I’m pretty sure you have to trigger extra reinforcements in order to get this to count, which feels like a misstep to me. It definitely led to me having to repeat this one a couple times, which was pretty annoying considering it was probably the longest challenge to complete in the mission. 

All the Time in the World (Slovakia) - Beat for beat, probably the best mission in the whole game. This one has it all: great story, a gorgeous locale, sneaking, breaking and entering, combat, disguises, puzzles, a boss fight, a car chase, a shoot out, and a goofy combat section at the end. What more could you want? My one complaint is that the level can occassionally feel like it’s on rails a bit too much, but honestly im not complaining when every section is so fun. All of the challenges were pretty fun to do as well. 

The Past Never Dies/Beyond the Grave (Mauritania) - So… this is where my fundamental issues with this game start to arise. Namely, the checkpoint system. For a game that clearly wants you to replay missions, it has a bananas inconsistent checkpoint system. Some missions have wayyyy too many checkpoints (to the point where each time you damage a boss counts as a checkpoint) and others don’t have nearly enough. This is one of the latter. The entire section where you have to earn $100k is one checkpoint, there are no intermediaries. This means that if you want to do any of the opportunities in the market that require you to have cash, you first have to do one of the sidequests to earn said cash every single time you replay the mission. This is coupled with the utterly baffling design decision to give you a fixed gadget loadout whenever you select a checkpoint from “Select Chapter” menu. Might not seem like a big deal at first, except that for some fucking reason the fixed loadout for this mission does not include the laser strap, despite it being flat out required for some opportunities. This means that in order to do those opportunities, you have to select the checkpoint in the previous chapter where you first select your gadgets, and then replay EVERYTHING up until you get to the opportunity. Factoring in long unskippable cutscenes and walking/driving sections, this becomes a huge time waster. This is particularly egregious because the Hitman games would let you select your full loadout every time you replayed a mission, which makes this just seem like a weird oversight. Hopefully this is remedied in a future patch, because this is by FAR the most annoying part of trying to 100% this game. Back to the mission itself, this is unfortunately my least favorite mission in the game at the moment due to the issues i described. If you’re trying to do all the challenges, make a list and try and do as many of them in one run as you can. None of the individual challenges themselves are that bad, and some are even pretty fun like “No Trouble at All”. Unfortunately, this mission also has imo the weakest story out of the main missions, as the whole 009 conspiracy mystery felt too contrived to me. 

Uninvited (London) - This mission is where I started to notice that the game is also weirdly buggy? Several challenges simply would not complete unless I did them in a very specific way. The most egregious example of this is the “Nothing to Report” challenge where you have to take down every guard in the workshop without being seen. At the beginning of this checkpoint, before you actually get to the workshop, there are two guards who come into the room looking for you. For whatever reason, if you take out these guards it locks you out of getting “Nothing to Report”, even if you do it stealthily. What you’re actually supposed to do is sneak past these two guards and THEN take down every guard in the workshop without being seen. I don’t know why these two things would be related, but you can imagine my annoyance when I successfully cleared out the whole workshop stealthily only for the challenge to not pop up at the end. The rest of the mission I thought was fine. The courtyard area was particularly fun. 

Knightfall (Webb Industries) - This mission is by far the worst offender of the “not enough checkpoints” problem. Everything from getting off the elevator with Finch to making it to the third floor is all just one single checkpoint. This means if you want to repeat this section to do the the multiple challenges in the security room on the second floor, you first have to get the key to the second floor, head up there, take out the first guard, notice that the proceeding door is locked, and then have the mandatory “side chat” with Greenway. Every. Single. Time. There definitely should be a checkpoint after the Greenway chat, and honestly imo there should even be another one when you first get to the second floor. It’s just a bizarrely long stretch to not have a checkpoint even if there’s no fighting up to that point. On a lighter note, the server room is one of my favorite encounters in the whole game and doing it stealthily was also a great challenge.

Time to Die (Vietnam) - This mission is kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand, I actually really liked the first part of the mission where you’re learning the map and learning about the three potential targets. This is the part of the game that actually felt the most like Hitman for me. On the other hand, the nighttime section was pretty disappointing and surprisingly short. In particular, the “Wraith” challenge where you have to traverse the resort without being detected was extremely annoying because there’s very little cover to hide yourself and the enemies behave very inconsistently. The second Murto battle was also a letdown after the first one, and I wasn’t a huge fan of the big quarry battle at the end either. 

Wave of the Future (Antarctica) - This is one of the best missions in the game, up there with “All the Time in the World”. This mission is quite long with plenty of checkpoints, a lot of fun sections, and a great story. Only two problem challenges here: the “Perfect Strike” challenge where you have to destroy 10 androids with one roll of wreckie was pretty finnicky to line up properly. The other one is “Deadly Delivery” because it requires the flash mines and this is another instance of the fixed gadget loadouts not giving you what you need. This one is an especially long run back too, about 20 minutes long including a lot of unskippable cutscenes. 

For England (MI6) - The final mission of the game is… decent. “The Great Escape” has my vote for hardest challenge in the game since it’s a lot of enemies in an enclosed space and you have no gadgets or Q-Lens to help you out. “Apex Predator” is another challenge that’s unfortunately bugged/mislabeled because it wouldn’t pop unless I took down at least one guard with an aerial takedown for some reason. “Reduce Your Screen Time” is also without a doubt the dumbest challenge in the whole game; destroying 50 screens takes forever especially since it takes more than one bullet to bring down a screen. On the other hand, the Q-Lab and car sections were good goofy fun, and the final boss fights against Damien were pretty entertaining as well.