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James Bond is finally coming back to games in a big way, the timing couldn’t be better for a bit of honest reflection.
007 First Light crosses the finish line
IO Interactive confirmed this week that 007 First Light has officially gone gold, meaning the game is content-complete and ready to ship ahead of its May 27 release. After being pushed back from an initial March 2026 launch date, it’s a milestone worth celebrating. The remaining weeks before launch will be spent squashing bugs and polishing things up, standard stuff, but reassuring to hear nonetheless.
007 First Light arrives on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S at the end of the month, with Nintendo Switch 2 players waiting a little longer following a separate delay confirmed last month. IO did commit to actually releasing that version, which apparently needs saying after the Borderlands 4 situation.
What went wrong before
With 007 First Light launch approaching, former EA Bond producer Chuck Beaver has been speaking openly about the trilogy he helped create in the 2000s, and where he thinks it all went sideways.
In a candid interview with FRVR, Beaver pointed to the Batman: Arkham games as the blueprint EA never got to use. After handing the Bond licence to Activision following From Russia With Love, Rocksteady released Arkham Asylum, and Beaver’s reaction was essentially “that’s exactly what we should have made.”
His reasoning was Batman and Bond are basically the same character. “Batman is Bond in a cape and cowl,” as he put it. He also argued that making a Bond game in 2026 is far easier than it was back then, given how many strong templates now exist, including Snake from Metal Gear Solid.
IO Interactive, of course, is drawing on Hitman and Uncharted as its references. Whether that’s the right cocktail, we’ll find out on May 27.
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