UPDATE 7.30pm: Having slapped its long-awaited James Bond project with a name earlier today, developer IO Interactive has now announced its very own showcase, which appears to be where you’ll be wanting to point your face for 007: First Light’s full reveal.
Specifically, the IO Showcase airs this Friday, 6th June, at 6pm PDT. That’s 2am on 7th June for those of us in the UK, so nobody’s likely to object if you’d rather go to bed and catch up later. Anyone wishing to watch it live, though, can do so via Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok.
Alongside 007: First Light, there’ll be word on some fresh Hitman content and collaborations arriving as part of the series’ 25th anniversary celebrations, plus a look at MindsEye, assuming nobody pays to have the internet taken down before then. Across those titles, you can expect “trailers, announcements, gameplay demos, and a live Q&A”, and there’s promise of special guests, a look at IO’s game engine, Glacier, and “additional surprises” too.
ORIGINAL STORY 4.49pm: IOI’s upcoming James Bond game has finally got itself an actual name, after years of it being known as Project 007.
IOI first announced its James Bond game back in 2021, and since then details on the project have been few and far between. However, that is set to change soon, with the developer today announcing the upcoming release will officially be called 007: First Light, with a full reveal promised for later this week.
This reveal will feature “never-before-seen footage”, the developer has teased, calling this the start of a “new era for James Bond in video games”.
Along with this announcement, the studio also shared a teaser image, showing a male character – call me Miss Marple, but I am going to say this is none other than James Bond himself – bathed in shadow. You can see the image in the header above.
Towards the end of last year, IOI said it hopes its upcoming James Bond origin story will be the start of a trilogy, adding the release will not be a “gamification of a movie”.
“It’s completely beginning and becoming a story, hopefully for a big trilogy out there in the future. And equally important and exciting, it’s a new Bond,” IOI boss Hakan Abrak said in October.
“It’s a Bond we built from the ground up for gamers. It’s extremely exciting with all the tradition and all the history there is… to work on this together with the family [and create] a Bond that the gamers can call their own and grow with.”
Meanwhile back in April, IOI’s James Bond game was additionally confirmed for Switch 2, although no release date was teased along with this announcement.
Hopefully we will learn more later this week. While the developer hasn’t yet said when its 007: First Light reveal will be, I am going to make a guess it will crop up at Summer Game Fest’s opening night this Friday. Stay tuned!
