- 007 First Light game director Hakan Abrak says the game was always intended as an origin story
- He says the team approached MGM and had ideas for a young James Bond story that was “non-negotiable.”
- He adds that there were weekly feedback meetings, but IO was always in charge of the story.
IO Interactive has confirmed that 007 First Light was always intended to be a young James Bond story and frequently collaborated with franchise owner Amazon MGM Studios.
In an interview with TechRadar Gaming during an event adjacent to Summer Game Fest 2026, game director Hakan Abrak discussed the game’s conceptual phase and confirmed that First light was “always meant to be a young Bond story”, and the process of pitching it to MGM and Bond IP co-owners Barbara Broccolo and Michael G. Wilson was “extremely daunting”.
Abrak recalls that the presentation process took place in a room adorned with old books by James Bond novelist Ian Fleming, a grand piano, and that “the atmosphere of the story was so thick you could just walk through it.”
When he and other members of the IO team went to present, he recalled that MGM executives entered the room and were “completely silent” before telling the developers to go ahead and present.
“We present the story, we present our approach and why it would be different from other Bond games,” Abrak said. “[They were] very quiet, then Barbara just says, after a while, Stonefaced just says, “I like that,” and then the room erupted right after; [they said] “These guys are so cool, like they didn’t really get it, I was like keep my cool and stuff, but deep down I was like ‘phew,’ this was something.”
The game director noted that he thought IO’s initial pitch was “a bit bold” and that the team had a lot of ideas for introducing aspects of Ian Fleming’s novels, like James Bond’s scar, and creating a coming-of-age story “where it’s not like he has it all figured out.”
Abrak said the team didn’t want to recreate a “perfect digital version of Daniel Craig, I love Daniel Craig, but they just wanted to create something that feels original.”
“More importantly, what we told them is we want to focus on the players, we want to create a connection for the players,” he said, explaining that some younger players might not have a familiar attachment to Bond like the older generation.
“We [wanted] take that risk and introduce a new Bond for gamers,” he said. “We want to create a Bond for gamers, not the gamification of a movie. It is difficult [to go there] with non-negotiable items, but it was non-negotiable for us. If we did that, we needed to get that freedom for that approach. So it was very, very clear from the start. »
While IO had creative control over the story, Abrak said there was input from MGM, as well as several casting sessions before Paddy Gibson was cast as Bond. The team also had weekly meetings with Eon Productions, the British film production company that primarily produced the Bond film series.
“Although the story was written by IO and delivered by us, we received a lot of feedback,” he said. “I think we had a certain affinity, and we had something to start with, like with Danish black humor, dry humor, but to really understand British humor, it [was] still a long way to go.
“It’s been extremely helpful, and we’re really interested in it, and I think for the younger generation of Eon creators that we’ve had meetings with, and the artwork for the films, which [was] who were also attached to it, it was very, very exciting for them to be able to do it, because they were creating a new one. [Bond] from bottom to top.
“It was a collaboration; they were very involved, but it was still IO, doing the story, creating the characters and everything, then getting feedback and working closely together.”
007 First Light is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is expected to launch this year.
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