007 First Light is more than just Hitman: James Bond edition, and I'm over any fears I might have had that IO couldn't deliver

My demo of 007 First Light opens unlike any other James Bond game, book, or film I've ever seen. Rather than some explosive action scene, it's positively sedate, Bond decked out in a chauffeur's uniform as he drives gently up to the exterior of a hotel buried deep in the Slovakian mountains. But from these humble beginnings that bring Bond in-line with First Light's origins in the Hitman series, developer IO Interactive quickly shows that it's not afraid to blend its stealthy pedigree with the explosively high stakes you'd expect from 007.

The first half of the demo is slow, methodical - and personally frustrating to Bond. 007: First Light acts as an origin story, and this is our young secret agent's first mission. He's been chosen specifically to work alongside other MI6 operatives who are also brand new to the world of international espionage, but he's drawn the short straw. While his teammates are posing as high-flyers attending an exclusive chess tournament, Bond is their driver, and as such is left to man the exit as a last line of defense in case the target - rogue agent 009 - tries to beat a hasty retreat.

True to 007, however, it's not long before Bond abandons his post to investigate some mysterious behavior. But as a humble chauffeur, getting access to the hotel is no easy feat. It's here that you can feel IO's history with the Hitman series most clearly - this sequence is a case of distracting guards and sneaking around. But this isn't a Hitman game. Bond is a secret agent who can't arouse suspicion, not an assassin who can do whatever he likes as long as he gets his target. Feats of acrobatics or being seen committing distracting shenanigans will blow your cover so quickly that First Light doesn't even let you try to do them while there's a chance you can be seen.

Eventually, Bond's able to distract one guard with a rogue garden hose, steal a lighter to ignite a wheelbarrow of dried leaves, and use the ensuing chaos to shimmy up an unseen drainpipe to an open window. The employees inside are temporarily shocked, but Bond explains away his incursion in a moment of 007-esque improvisation, telling them he's a security expert assessing the hotel's perimeter. I was initially concerned that this was too linear a sequence, something more akin to a puzzle game than an action title, but IO representatives explained that it was just one of many ways to get to your target.

"Secret" agent

From here, we quickly get to see Bond at his most suave, mingling with the hotel's wealthy clientele (while dodging the friendly MI6 agents inside who may recognize him away from his post). His Q watch can be used to assess the environment, and in our demo James opts to search for his target - in this case a suspicious bellboy - by asking a nearby bartender. It's a confident, well-written interpretation of Bond, with a self-assuredness that doesn't tip over into arrogance, and which understands his position as a junior agent still finding his feet, but who's still prepared to disregard orders.

Unfortunately, we don't get to see the direct consequences of that particular decision, as the demo skips ahead to a point where things have definitely gone south. 009 is making a run for it, and a dramatically more disheveled Bond is tasked with keeping chase - in a classic Aston Martin, of course, and with a beautiful woman handing him the keys.

It's at this point that we're in unknown territory. While the Hitman series made IO the clear favorites to cover the sneakier aspects of Bond, those games often take place in dense but incredibly well-contained stealth sandboxes. The huge hotel you're tasked with infiltrating fits that pedigree perfectly. But now we're careening down country roads at high speeds. Driving and large-scale open areas are both whole new ball games for this studio, but they're also an integral part of any James Bond game.

While it's impossible to get a real feel for the wheel during a hands-off session, what I see is pretty good. There's as true a sensation of rubber over tarmac as you can hope for. It's fast, frantic, and filled with set pieces as Bond and his mysterious new ally fly after the escaping 009. Narrow streets give way to sprawling fields, the tracks carved by both Bond and his quarry being left in the fields as they drive. One particularly gnarly collision deforms the rear windscreen and bumper, smashing through a fence briefly attaches a trail of barbed wire to the car. Tires squeal and smoke kicks up as the Aston is flung around a tight mountain road.

Takeoff

And then suddenly it's over, and 009 is making his way to an airfield. Bond gives chase on foot, his femme fatale friend hoping to cut their joint target off in the car. It's here that IO takes another pivot from its traditional fare, switching into the conventional third-person action fare that's another obvious part of any 007 game. A dark figure spots James' attempted infiltration, and learns too late that while this Bond doesn't yet have his license to kill, any obvious danger is one that can swiftly be put down.

That first pistol shot ignites an enormous shootout, one so explosive that it would be more at home at a Bond film's climax than its opening. As James shoots his way across the airfield in an attempt to prevent 009's plane from taking off, all hell quickly breaks loose. Again, it's hard to get a sense of the gunplay without having a controller in-hand, but it feels slightly less clean than the driving did. Where Bond films go for massive shootouts, they're often finely choreographed and edited to make each shot or explosion hit as hard as it can. In third-person, much of the action gets lost in the midground. Overall, the sequence is more like the blunt trauma of Just Cause or The Expendables than the tighter scenes that define more modern action movies.

There are certainly exceptions though. One highlight comes when James' clip runs out, and rather than diving for cover or reloading on the fly, he simply flings the empty rifle at a nearby enemy, staggering them long enough to take them out in close combat. Later, he kicks a fresh gun up to his hands with a practised flick, barely breaking stride as he continues his rampage. From there, the sense of cinema builds, and in an attempt to chase down the rapidly accelerating cargo plane, James jumps behind the wheel of some mobile stairs, using his unlikely new vehicle to climb aboard.

On the face of things, it's clearly ridiculous, and at one point I did wince at the strength of James' apparent plot armor. But even if the direction doesn't always keep up, the tone of the whole thing is unapologetically Bond. On occasion the demo begins to stray into the almost arcade-y territory of Uncharted's biggest set pieces, but IO never really loses sight of how to make this feel authentic to its source material. My biggest internal test is whether I can see Daniel Craig pulling off a given stunt, and it's very rare that it feels my answer would be 'no'.

Going into Gamescom, 007: First Light was my most-anticipated title, but that feeling came with a lot of trepidation. I'm a long-term Hitman fan, and had no worries about IO's ability to pull off that aspect of Bond. But I know that charisma, gadgetry, and social stealth are only one part of the 007 mythos, and that many of the other features that make a good Bond game can be difficult to pull off. From what I've seen so far, IO doesn't completely nail that down every single time, but where it does stumble it's an issue with the format rather than an issue with the delivery itself. If that minor quibble is the only one the studio faces, then my faith in 007: First Light seems well-placed - this could prove to be the perfect Bond game.

007: First Light devs chose a James Bond origin story to help be "more relatable" to a "younger audience maybe than the Bond franchise is used to"