We don’t know how long this stream will run for, but previous Partner Preview events have lasted around 25 to 30 minutes. As indicated by the name, this stream will highlight third-party publishers. Xbox called out companies like THQ Nordic, Tencent and IO Interactive in the press release that announced the event.
We do know some games that’ll be getting the spotlight this week. Xbox has stated that we’ll be seeing “an exciting first look” at content coming to the James Bond game, 007 First Light. IO Interactive is behind that one and it comes out on March 27.
We got to watch this title in action at Gamescom and called it “Hitman meets action blockbuster.” This is appropriate given that developer IO Interactive was behind many of the Hitman games.
We’ll also be getting an “electrifying extended gameplay trailer” for Tides of Annihilation. This is an upcoming fantasy adventure game made by the Chinese studio Eclipse Glow Games. The platform also promises a “fresh look” at Reanimal, which is a horror adventure from the folks behind Little Nightmares.
Xbox has also promised some “brand-new reveals and Game Pass announcements.” Those Game Pass announcements had better be beefy, considering that recent price hike. We’ll find out on Thursday.
Just yesterday, IO Interactive revealed its first gameplay from its James Bond game, 007 First Light. While it’s set in its own continuity, it’ll still have some ties to the films and books—in fact, those ties are how IO got the reins of Bond in the first place.
Press like IGN got to visit the studio prior to the recent unveiling, and it was there game director Hakan Abrak revealed part of IO’s pitch for the game was sculpting Daniel Craig’s face onto Agent 47, the star of its stealth-action franchise Hitman. This Craig sculpt was “just for demo purposes,” said Abrak, “to give an impression of what these living, breathing spaces mean in an IO game.” The demo was set in the 2016 Hitman’s Sapienza level, a fictional Italian town with a compound in the caverns with the level’s villain working on a virus. Among the Hitman reboot trilogy, it’s also a fan favorite that lets players get into some Bond-like situations to complete their missions.
With that demo, Bond’s license holders MGM and Eon saw “our angle would be [trying] to deliver a 360 experience where … [you can] explore the part of the Bond fantasy where he is in social spaces where he is using not only his fisticuffs,” continued Abrak, “but also his charms and bluff and figuring out different ways in those social spaces to overcome the obstacles or get what he wants. How would a charming Bond fare in a situation like this where he doesn’t have to necessarily resort to violence?”
The 007 First Light reveal also featured multiple avenues for Bond to infiltrate places, from bluffing his way in to swiping credentials and regular sneaking. This being IO’s first time with an established IP, Abrak said the team wanted to “put our creative fingerprints on this as well. So we weren’t interested in a gamification of a movie or maybe where it’s about technical prowess only…or just taking some bespoke scenes from a movie and realizing them in gaming.”
007 First Light will release on March 27, 2026 for PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
A PlayStation State of Play showcase all about 007 First Light shed some light on how Hitman developer IO Interactive’s James Bond game works. The stream also disclosed what was, until now, a top-secret nugget of intel: the release date. 007 First Light is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, Steam and Epic Games Store on March 27.
The State of Play included a partial playthrough of the first mission, which sees Bond stealthily tailing a suspicious bellhop through a fancy hotel. Some time later, Bond breaks into a car to chase down a target, which leads into an explosive shootout. In a neat touch, Bond is granted a license to kill when enemies are about to shoot at him. One of my favorite bits from the gameplay deep dive showed Bond pushing an enemy off a ledge and using the baddie to break his own fall.
Bond uses all the tricks of the trade, including distractions, gadgets and sweet talking NPCs. As with the Hitman series, you’ll have plenty of options as to how to complete your objectives. Being a Bond project, of course there’s plenty of product placement too. You can read more details about what to expect from the game in our preview.
In addition, IO Interactive revealed the game’s main cast during the State of Play. Patrick Gibson (The Tudors, Dexter: Original Sin) is playing 007. The cast also includes Priyanga Burford as M, Alastair Mackenzie as Q, Kiera Lester as Miss Moneypenny, Lennie James as John Greenway and Noemie Nakai as Miss Roth. What are the odds that at least one of those will turn out to be a double agent?
Pre-orders are open now. If you do lock in a pre-order for the $70 base edition, you’ll get a free upgrade to 007 First Light – Deluxe Edition, which includes 24 hours of early access, as well as exclusive outfits and skins for weapons and gadgets.
The question I’ve asked myself while waiting for my first taste of 007 First Light has been this: is this going to be a Bond game with Hitman-like levels, drawing on IO’s experience with lethal sandboxes? Or is this going to be a classic action-adventure game, mixing combat and platforming with wild set pieces? The answer, I’ve recently found out, is: both.
After a hands-off demo at gamescom, 007 First Light has shot up to the heights of my most anticipated games. Combining the thoughtful, self-directed stealth of IO’s recent triumphs with some incredible action scenes, this is a game that sees a studio recognizing its own strengths, and then stretching them so much further.
Doing the Fieldwork
Across around 40 minutes, I see sections of a lengthy, multi-stage mission from relatively early in the game. A young James Bond has been sent into the Carpathian Mountains – along with a squad of other budding spies – to attend the World Chess Championship, in the hope of discovering and detaining a rogue 009. Much to Bond’s chagrin, however, he’s been assigned only as the getaway driver.
In set-up, it’s pure Hitman – the lavish hotel you visit is packed with well-dressed, chattering NPCs, and your goal is tantalizingly vague, giving plenty of scope for you interpret the mission in your own way. But the presence of Bond lends it a different feeling – in a Hitman game, you’re empowered to go lethal as early as you’d like, its murkier worldview allowing you to act with impunity. Bond, however, has to abide (at least somewhat) by the rules.
In 007 First Light, your License to Kill is an actual game mechanic – you’re only allowed to employ lethal force if an enemy tries to take you down first. As a result, the opening parts of this mission force you to engage with the subtler elements of international espionage. After noticing some suspicious activity from a bellhop while waiting by the car (a gorgeous green Jaguar, naturally), Bond begins searching for a way into the hotel.
We see him try to talk his way in through the front door (with a dialogue choice-based conversation system), before attempting a stealthier route. First, he uses his Q-Lab branded watch (which is also your minimap) to identify opportunities, and spots a sprinkler system that can be used to distract a guard. Using stealth, he creeps into a staff-only area, waits for the guard to hit a less visible corner, and uses his phone to fire an incapacitating dart – I’m very excited to see how far the gadgets go here.
Collecting a dropped lighter, he then makes his way to a gardener’s wheelbarrow, and surreptitiously sets the leaf litter inside on fire, causing a larger distraction, before using a parkour system to scale the hotel and sneak in through a window. In a beautifully Bond-y touch, he startles some hotel staff as he climbs in, and casually explains that he’s testing the security while strolling by.
IO assures us that this is just a single way of many to gain entrance to the building and, based on their history with Hitman, that feels very clear – this is a huge playspace, and I can only imagine there are many other routes that could be taken to begin the mission proper. Speaking of the building, IO is employing all its Hitman tricks to make it feel like a real place here, too – every detail feels meticulously designed to both look good, while offering true opportunities for play. Once we reach the Chess Championship, it’s a true wow moment, with some incredible lighting playing over the frankly enormous crowd of NPCs watching on in a retooled ballroom.
But, as I’ve alluded to, this is only half of the experience.
Becoming a Blockbuster
The demo skips forward at this point to show us the other side of the First Light coin. When we rejoin Bond, 009 has been discovered but escapes in a car – which begins a series of wild set pieces.
Bond commandeers a guest’s vehicle (this time, a vintage Aston Martin), and we’re plunged into a car chase down the mountains. It’s pure Bond movie – the player is surrounded by gorgeous scenery, and forced into dangerous shortcuts by scripted moments of high action. At one point, Bond’s forced to ramp off of a car truck, and the camera offers a full, filmic moment of slow-mo to give you the full effect.
Reaching the end of the chase, 009 has decamped into a nearby airfield, rammed with henchmen, and so begins a true combat sequence. As a first goon raises their weapon, time slows down and “License to Kill” flashes up on screen, and all hell breaks loose.
First Light looks to be combining ranged and melee combat seamlessly, with a brutality clearly drawing on the Daniel Craig era of the films. This younger, more off-the-rails Bond picks up and swaps weapons with abandon – and when he runs out of ammo, he simply throws it at his nearest opponent, enters hand-to-hand mode, disarms them and, hey presto, a new gun to use.
There’s a real emphasis on movie-like fun over painstaking reality here. At one point, IO shows off a move where Bond charges into an armored enemy, tackles them off of a gantry, and rides their body to the ground, before charging back into the fray at ground level. Parked cars seem to explode incredibly easily after a few gunshots, transforming what could be tedious cover shooting into something more like a firework-filled shooting gallery.
Eventually, 009 gets onto a cargo plane, which begins taxiing up the runway – so Bond steals an airport stair car, drives it alongside the plane, then climbs up the stairs onto the wing. A short melee sequence on the back of a moving plane sees him chucking enemies into the wind, before he climbs inside just as it takes off.
At this point, I was sure we were going to see a “predator stealth” section, with Bond silently dispatching enemies across the plane. Instead, it was so much less predictable. Bond can hack the plane’s controls, and what we get is a sequence of combat where – at any time – the player can violently bank the plane left and right, sending everything (enemies, cargo, entire vehicles) lurching from side to side, clearing a path. It’s a set piece that promises so much – First Light won’t simply reuse a set of game mechanics that repeat from mission to mission, but seems to aim to give you a more movie-like sense of pacing, changing based on what’s most entertaining for a given moment.
To finish our demonstration, Bond realizes he won’t be able to catch 009 – instead turning his watch to tracker mode, attaching it to the hull, and jumping out of the plane. The only issue? He doesn’t have a parachute. Instead, we get a skydiving section where he catches up to bailed out enemies, fights them in mid-air, and uses their parachute to his own ends.
Taken altogether, it’s a ludicrously enjoyable sequence, one that shows IO understands its mission intimately. Yes, this is a studio with a background in a specific kind of game, but taking on the 007 license allows them to have their cake and eat it. The fact that First Light will include the kinds of open-ended sandbox spy missions we’d expect from this studio is deeply exciting – but that they’re so willing to stitch them together with movie-indebted action set pieces is the true mark that they’re going further with their ambitions than ever before.
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We’ve known for some time now that IO Interactive, the studio behind the fantastic Hitman games, is working on a new James Bond game. And while that team seems like a perfect match and a new Bond game seems long overdue, according to IOI, the team had to assure the folks who own the spy franchise that it wasn’t going to make another FPS in order to convince them to hand over the rights.
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GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64 is one of the most famous and beloved video games in history. It popularized FPS games on consoles, sold over eight million copies, and led to dozens of similar James Bond FPS games. I’d argue the games helped grow the franchise’s audience. With all that said, you’d think Eon Productions—the folks who own the Bond franchise—would be excited about a new game based on its popular spy. But according to the devs behind it, that wasn’t the case—and you can blame GoldenEyefor that.
In the newest edition of Edge magazine, as reported by GamesRadar, IO Interactive co-owners Hakan Abrak and Christian Elverdam talked about the still-in-development 007 game, detailing their vision for the project. But the two also explained that it took a lot of convincing to get Eon Productions to sign off on the project, as the Bond owners didn’t want yet another “action-oriented” FPS.
“Our impression was clearly that [at the time] they were not looking for a game,” said IO Interactive CEO and co-owner Hakan Abrak. “And I think it’s fair that they might not have been super-happy with some of the later games.”
The co-owners of IO Interactive pitched Eon Productions on a James Bond game that was less GoldenEye and more about being a globe-trotting, stealth-oriented spy. Elverdam explained that its pitch to Eon focused on how its 007 project would be about getting in and out of a location without causing much collateral damage or engaging in violence unless needed. In other words, IO Interactive’s project won’t be Bond running down endless corridors carrying 20 guns and shooting everyone he encounters, which is how I would describe the vast majority of 007 games made in the last 20 years. Instead, it sounds like it will play a lot more like the Hitman games, where violence is often a last resort and stealthy gameplay is king.
Elverdam told Edge that this approach “helped [IO Interactive] convince Eon that there’s a sophistication in how we treat the agent fantasy.” This seems to have been enough to get the green light and let IO make its Bond project. And honestly, after playing far too many Bond shooters, I can’t wait for a more stealth-oriented spy game. I’ve said before that IOI is the best developer to make a modern 007 game and I can’t wait to see what the studio is working on when it finally reveals more about Project 007.
