The most memorable part of 007 First Light is something that’s typically pretty boring: the tutorial. In many games, you’re forced through a series of tedious lessons in how to play, presented in a way that feels disconnected from the story itself and at a plodding pace. But First Light does something different. Because the game is centered on a young James Bond, one who is just learning to be a secret agent, the tutorial is structured like a training montage in a classic action movie. As months speed by, the game has a snappy supercut of Bond learning everything from firing a gun to parkouring across a building. But because it’s a game, these moments are also interactive, and you’re quickly learning the ropes alongside the character. It may seem like a small thing, but First Light’s tutorial is just the latest example of how blurry the lines between games, film, and television have become.
Games aping cinematic traditions isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. The medium has been influenced by movies since its inception, whether it’s Donkey Kong pulling from classic monster movies or franchises like Uncharted and Ghost of Tsushima making movie-like experiences into something interactive. (Directors like Hideo Kojima love nothing more than squeezing Hollywood talent into their games.) But a game like First Light represents just how far this phenomenon has come. It’s not a movie tie-in, nor is it an approximation of a genre, like Uncharted is to Indiana Jones-style adventure movies. It’s a game-first iteration of one of film’s longest-running franchises.
First Light isn’t some complete reinvention of action-adventure games. For the most part, it plays a lot like a cross between Hitman, an assassination franchise also made by First Light developer IO Interactive, and Uncharted, which is filled with action set pieces. But it also pulls from the world of film in smart ways. After an explosive opening section, you see a classic Bond intro credits sequence with a new song from Lana Del Rey, and then the game uses familiar cinematic language like the training montage to give it that movie-like feel. Things you’re used to seeing in movies, like Bond being beaten during an interrogation while tied to a chair, are now interactive rather than something you just watch. This is on top of the usual tricks of the video game trade: dramatic cutscenes, over-the-top action sequences, fast-paced car chases, and celebrity cameos like Lenny Kravitz (who makes a brief appearance as an African pirate boss with an inexplicable American accent).
What’s especially interesting about this moment is not just that games are getting better at incorporating elements from film and television in a way that feels natural; inspiration now goes both ways. The Exit 8 film adaptation opened with a first-person sequence that was just like the game in order to “blur the lines between video game and cinema,” while Markiplier’s Iron Lung film was a lot like watching someone play the indie horror game. The Last of Us’ HBO adaptation is so similar to the games that watching it can often seem like a cutscene supercut.
This merging of mediums has worked out particularly well for First Light. It’s a game developed by a studio with a history in open-ended action games and a clear understanding of both what makes Bond work and how that can translate to a video game. That’s allowed the studio to mix up the mediums in ways that can even make a tutorial into something that feels like it’s ripped right out of an action movie.