007 First Light is developer IO Interactive’s first attempt at working on an established IP with the James Bond franchise—and it’s also an appropriate pairing. The Hitman series is all about embodying a man of mystery who uses his cunning along with an array of weapons and gadgets to complete missions, so seeing the devs at IO Interactive apply their slick, open-ended balance of action and stealth to James Bond seems like we’re in store of an evolution of the Hitman structure on a grander scale.
During Summer Game Fest 2025, we had the opportunity to speak with IO Interactive Chief Technical Officer Ulas Karademir about the making of 007 First Light. In addition to giving some details on the upgraded engine that IO Interactive made for their dive into Bond, the CTO explained why he returned to the company following his departure to lead the upgrade of IO Interactive’s Glacier engine, and why their Bond game offers a greater degree of freedom than the Hitman series.
“I left in 2014 [to work as the VP of engineering at Unity] during the development of Hitman 2016, but in the last year, I had come to the office to see what they were doing, and the first thing that Hakan B. Abrak—CEO of IO Interactive—showed me was the James Bond game,” said Karademir. “He knew that I really wanted to work with this franchise, so he showed me the game, and then he asked me, “Do you want to come back?” and I was like, “Yeah, I think so.” With everything we have planned [with the scope and increased agency], yeah, I think this is the right game for us.”
Related:Creating the card-based RPG Battle Suit Aces – Game Developer Podcast Ep. 59
007 First Light focuses on the origin story of James Bond, who appears as a 26-year-old recruit from the Royal Navy into MI6. The pitch is heady: throughout his missions with the secret agency, he’ll utilize a variety of gadgets, stealth tactics, weapon skills, and even social engineering to overcome the odds against him.
Via IOI
While the most prolific Bond games have focused heavily on action-laden spectacle, and while the 007 First Light trailer certainly showcased shootouts and over-the-top sequences, the developers were firm in stating the game is about giving players options to engage in each mission. The core gameplay is very much in line with Hitman’s immersive sim approach of exploring clockwork levels where players take advantage of NPC behavior to accomplish missions.
The developers told us the title leans even further into the agent fantasy than Hitman, all with the intent to highlight Bond as a multifaceted secret agent who can adapt to different situations.
Related:Finding smart shortcuts in A Short Hike postmortem – Unlocking the Vault #4
“There are a [lot] more options in this game compared to Hitman,” Karademir said. “You can play the game with a stealth approach, or you can do social interactions with Bond trying to bluff his way out of situations, which creates situations with humor and interactions like that. Of course, you can go in guns blazing sometimes, but this game is about giving a lot of opportunities in the game when you play it. There are so many different approaches in 007 First Light, and it’s way more than what we had in Hitman.”
The discussion turned to the topic of the Glacier engine, IOI’s proprietary technology that powers the recent Hitman: World of Assassination games. The upgrade to Glacier 2 for 007 First Light was motivated by the increased scale of the game’s levels and the greater degree of options that players would have in exploring the game.
“At IO Interactive, we spend a lot of time trying to figure out what is fun”
“We have this understanding of the agent fantasy and the freedom of approach, which is what Hitman was all about,” said Karademir. “At IO Interactive, we spend a lot of time trying to figure out what is fun. We tend to really obsess about gameplay, and once we figure it out, the production is quite easy. We know how to produce games, and we have been doing this for 25 years, but it always was that kind of iteration speed that we have with our engine when trying to figure out ‘is this fun?’ and [consider] what kind of a game we are building.”
Related:Marvel Zombies was built to give Marvel Rivals players a breather
While 007 First Light looks to be a more fleshed-out and sprawling adventure that goes further with non-kill options, the developer insists the Hitman DNA is still clear and present. This game just goes further.
“Yeah, there is an inspiration from Hitman within our version of Bond—It is the same type of fantasy, right?” said the CTO. “But we also try to make it as unique as possible. Our designers spend a good amount of time figuring out what makes Bond unique, what kind of situations this character finds themself in, and how they can go about solving it. As the CTO, what I can tell you from the engine perspective is that just about anything in the game is made of entities, so it’s like building blocks.”
“It is kind of a very flexible environment for designers to work and try different things with the amount of approaches you can have. They can create set pieces, they can handle character interactions, and that gives them a kind of creative freedom to build what they would like to achieve in the games. From a technical perspective, there is a lot of trying, a lot of iterating, but we still have the key learnings as we build our take on the Bond IP.”