007 First Light devs went through "all the source material" to create their James Bond and really nail his "Bondliness," but without doing "a retelling"

IO Interactive's senior licensing producer has spoken about consulting the scrolls to make sure the Hitman devs' version of James Bond nails it in 007 First Light.

While the announcement that IO Interactive was making a James Bond game had me convinced from the get-go that it would be a perfect fit, James Bond has a whole lot of baggage attached. Thankfully the baggage of being a character who has been around since 1953 also means there's a lot to look at to nail down what works, and that's precisely what IO Interactive has done for their upcoming portrayal of the character in 007 First Light.

Speaking to GamesRadar+'s Ali Jones at Gamescom 2025, IO Interactive's senior licensing producer, Theuns Smit, is asked why Bond is a character so suited to the multiple reinventions he's gone through over the years. "What makes him unique is who he is inherently, his Bondliness, his charm, guile." Smit says, adding, "Leaning into that meant that [when] working on this, we didn't want to do a retelling – we really wanted to inject a bit of our own into this."

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But while putting your own spin on things, it is important to keep the essence of Bond, to which Smit assures: "We have a fantastic writer's team, who really spent a lot of time going through all the source material." Smit adds, "If you saw the previous trailer we brought out, there were a lot of people remarking on the scar on his face, which never really made it into the films, but it's from the Ian Fleming books. There's definitely no lack of source material."

007 First Light contains some of "the largest" missions Hitman developer IO Interactive has "ever done" before, which could make it one of the studio's biggest games yet