Upcoming James Bond game 007 First Light is shaping up to be the ultimate spy fantasy, offering not only satisfying stealth but also bombastic action and combat that combines third-person cover shooting and intense melee brawls.
The fights are frantic and improvisational, qualities that senior combat designer (and self-professed ‘director of violence’) Tom Marcham argues are deeply rooted in the Bond franchise.
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Everything can be a weapon
Marcham also detailed some of the research that went into crafting the game’s combat behind the scenes. He said the team “spent a long time looking” at what makes the perfect Bond fight across both the movies and the original Ian Fleming books.
“We looked at the James Bond fights from the Daniel Craig era, which obviously has the most developed and choreographed fight scenes, all the way back,” he began.
“Our throw mechanic is a reference to Thunderball,” he added — referring to the player’s ability to somewhat hilariously stagger enemies by pelting everything from nearby keyboard to coffee cups and even empty weapons at them with the tap of a button (you can check out the closing fight scene between Bond and Emilio Largo and his henchmen above).
“We went right the way back, and we even looked at the books a lot for this kind of stuff. Though the close combat in the books is a little less defined, because you can’t see it so clearly.”
He described distilling everything down to a “kind of jumble” of ideas with “some common patterns” like “creativity” and Bond’s propensity for “the smart and inventive” in fights.
“He was always grabbing something and throwing something, or doing something with the environment, and it wasn’t always clear at the beginning that was there was an opportunity for it. He would walk into a space and it wouldn’t seem like there’s any opportunity in there, then in the middle of the fight, something sharp turns up, and he grabs it.”
Overall, Marcham is “incredibly proud” of the mechanics his team has created. “We’re really excited to give it to players,” he added.
007 First Light is set to launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC on May 27, 2026. A Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game will follow later this year.
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dash.wood@futurenet.com (Dashiell Wood)
