What the new James Bond game should (and shouldn’t) inherit from Hitman

It's finally happening — we have a modern, AAA James Bond game on the way, and I couldn't possibly think of a better developer team for the job. IO Interactive, the makers of the Hitman games, are at the helm, and in 2026, the Danish studio will give us what is going to be perhaps the definitive Bond game. After all, there's no better DNA than the World of Assassination games for 007 First Light.

Regardless, we mustn't forget that everyone's favorite bald agent and the suave, globe-trotting Secret Service man are two very different personalities. In that vein, it's important to be cautious about his upcoming game, and not immediately jump onto the hype-train, or, well, the hype-Aston Martin.

5 I hope we can still finish missions in endless ways

Nobody improvises like 007

In his interviews, Hakan Abrak, the CEO of IO Interactive, confirms that the upcoming James Bond game is going to be far more scripted in its nature. That makes perfect sense — after all, Bond is an established IP, and his stories are always tense, action-packed, and thrill-inducing. Players can expect "spectacular action set-pieces" in 007 First Light, which, again, is par for the course when it comes to Bond.

However, my biggest fear is that the game might run the risk of becoming too scripted at times. The ability to see a mission through to its end in multiple ways, taking multiple approaches, and choosing to make it your own — that's something the Hitman games do best, and what I hope the Bond game takes to heart and runs with.

While Agent 47 might walk through crowds unnoticed, Bond demands a bit more drama. He doesn't hide in plain sight — he owns the room. I hope I'm rewarded for improvisation, flair, and fast thinking. Let me go against orders to see a mission through, just so I can feel like I've earned that million-dollar smirk that lights up the room.

4 007 First Light needs to continue having a strong sense of place

Globe-trotting is only as good as the maps

The biggest compliment I can give the Hitman trilogy — outside of calling it one of the greatest modern game trilogies — is that the maps are more memorable than most full games. Sapienza, Paris, Dubai, Mumbai — each location was so beautifully realized that it told its own story, and the architecture echoes every step you take. That sense of place is crucial to James Bond, too. From casinos in Macau to frozen bunkers in Siberia, Bond's escapades are always about where he is as much as what he's doing.

So, if IO is bringing their level design genius into 007 First Light, it's already a win. But it just needs to ensure that the maps and locations in First Light breathe. Every single Bond movie I've ever seen has stayed with me for its atmosphere, and the game must also reflect 007's world — classy, dangerous, and often messy.

Give me everything — luxury yachts, neon-lit alleyways, underground lairs, and high-speed chases through five-star hotels. Bond is definitely going to be his usual globe-trotting self, so I can only hope that every map he goes to oozes just as much personality and charm as the man himself.

3 007 First Light can't be a stealth-only game

What works for an assassin won't work for an MI6 man

As Agent 47, your greatest strength is stealth, no matter where you are or who you have to kill. Now, stealth is also a part of Bond's toolkit, but it's not the only tool there. 47 might be a ghost, vanishing into crowds unnoticed, but Bond? He's a wrecking ball in a tuxedo, charming your socks off while he destroys a convoy five minutes later. There's a balance of brute force and finesse that the Bond game needs to nail down perfectly, and for that, IO Interactive needs to introduce over-the-top action elements into their already-perfect Hitman formula. That could prove tricky, indeed.

So, while sneaking around is great, 007: First Light needs to let players go loud when the moment calls for it. 47 could do it, too, but he'd crumple to the ground with a couple of bullets. But Bond is much more of a stereotypical hero who won't go down without a fight — so if we're playing like Bond, we're going to be fighting on trains, planes, and zipping around cities and mountains — silencers be damned.

2 I hope the dumb AI from the Hitman games doesn't make it to First Light

Bond deserves a better class of foes

Truth be told, the one thing I never liked from the Hitman: World of Assassination trilogy is the AI. Hopelessly incapable, the AI almost takes the whole fun away sometimes. Yes, it's incredibly funny when I throw a briefcase and someone chases it like a golden retriever, but that sort of slapstick humor and incapable AI enemies has no place in a James Bond game.

Bond's world is full of cunning villains who hire deadly henchmen and elite agents — not NPCs with zero awareness of the same bald guy changing five outfits around them within ten minutes. 007 First Light needs smarter AI that can coordinate in firefights, react to noise and distractions, and hold their own in tense situations. They need to feel sharp, so that my victories as Bond can feel earned rather than handed to me because of an enemy's stupidity.

1 IO, please don't make First Light episodic

Episodic releases were tough to digest for the reboot

For the 2016 Hitman, IO did manage to pull it off — they made the game a seasonal one, releasing episode-by-episode, proving that storytelling can work if the levels are strong enough to stand on their own. I myself remember playing the Paris fashion show for hours, waiting for the day that Episode 2 would drop. But even then, it was tough to wait so long between missions. For a Bond story, episodic missions would be an absolute dealbreaker.

We've got high stakes, ongoing plots, and interconnected missions, all coming together to tell a well-written, tightly-paced Bond adventure, and an episodic release format would do the game no justice.

007 First Light needs to feel like a movie, not a series of short stories. Bond's narratives thrive on pacing and momentum, and an episodic release would only serve to chop that up and kill the energy. Let me binge on every mission, replay them, and experience the whole arc in one sleek, satisfying campaign, please.

There's no studio better suited for the job

This goes without saying — IO Interactive and James Bond seem like a match made in heaven, but that doesn't mean that 007 First Light should be a rebranded Tobias Rieper with a martini glass.

With the right mix of borrowed DNA from the Hitman games, and reinventing the formula to make the perfect Bond adventure, First Light could very well give us something we haven't seen in a very long time — a spy game that finally lives up to the legend of the man with a license to kill.