007 First Light Is Missing a Hallmark Of Some of the Best James Bond Games

Summary

007 First Light will lack multiplayer, contrary to most of the highest-rated James Bond video games ever made.
The upcoming title will instead aim to tap into IO Interactive’s single-player expertise.
007 First Light will feature the youngest James Bond yet and take place in “kind of a modern day.”

007 First Light will lack any kind of multiplayer, one of the defining features of some of the best James Bond games ever made. The omission reflects IO Interactive’s expertise and design sensibilities, both of which contributed to 007 First Light being a single-player-only experience.

IO Interactive first announced its James Bond game in late 2020, referring to it as Project 007. Nearly five years later, the Danish developer officially unveiled the title as 007 First Light during the June 2025 edition of Summer Game Fest.

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As the SGF 2025 announcement trailer premiered, the game’s listings went live across all major digital storefronts, confirming what IO Interactive had previously hinted: 007 First Light will be a single-player-only experience. The absence of multiplayer marks a notable departure for the James Bond video game franchise, as many of its highest-rated entries feature it in some shape or form.

IOI Sees 007 First Light As a History-Making Opportunity

Speaking to Game File‘s Stephen Totillo, IOI Global Marketing Director Jonathan Lacaille characterized 007 First Light as “a huge opportunity to actually make history” by producing a James Bond game after so many years. He cited that ambition as part of his motivation to join IOI from Ubisoft subsidiary Massive Entertainment, where he worked until early 2021. For reference, the most recent James Bond video game was 007 Legends, a 2012 first-person shooter that was widely panned by critics and marked the final project of British developer Eurocom before it entered administration.

Going further back, the James Bond video game franchise yielded multiple classics, including GoldenEye (1997), Everything Or Nothing (2003), and The World Is Not Enough (2000). Although all of those titles largely owe their cult followings to their chaotic and infinitely replayable split-screen modes, multiplayer isn’t what IO Interactive is known for, with its latest (internally developed) game that featured it being the 2010 Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days. 007 First Light will instead aim to tap into the studio’s single-player expertise. “We like to work on something else and [so] people will remember this game, not just that one back then,” Lacaille told Game File.

007 First Light Features the Youngest James Bond Yet

The newly premiered Summer Game Fest trailer confirmed that IOI’s big-budget project is presently targeting a 2026 release. The developer is still keeping the identity of 007 First Light‘s James Bond actor a secret, with Lacaille stating that IOI “wants people to care about the game first.” 007 First Light will feature the youngest James Bond to date—a 26-year-old who has not yet earned his license to kill. He’s still expected to rack up quite a body count over the course of the game, which Lacaille says takes place in “kind of a modern day,” albeit with no specific year spelled out, as per his Game File interview.