How much Hitman DNA is in 007 First Light? IO Interactive talks James Bond

If you had to come up with the ideal pairing of game developer and license, Hitman studio IO Interactive and James Bond is certainly up there.

The collaboration made perfect sense when it was first revealed back in 2020, and though we knew this would be a new origin story from the beginning, it’s only now we’ve seen what IO’s take on Bond actually looks like.

Many were curious to know how it arrived at its vision and how collaborating on such a storied character works, so VGC spoke to IO Interactive franchise director Jonathan Lacaille on the studio’s working relationship with MGM – from its earliest days through to how things have changed with Amazon taking creative control earlier this year – and, ahead of a gameplay reveal “later in the summer”, how much Hitman DNA we can expect.

Finally, we discussed the recent Switch 2 port of Hitman: World of Assassination, and if we’ll get another shot at the surprise Le Chiffre Elusive Target for those who missed out.

This is the first time the studio has worked with another property that’s not its own. Why was it the right time for IO to do this? And how did those first conversations come around with MGM when you wanted to work with Bond?

We had been doing Hitman for approximately 20 years around that time, and there was a wish from a lot of people in the studio to try something else. Of course, not to leave Hitman aside, because as you’ve seen, we’ve continued with a lot of content, so the plan was always to develop something alongside it.

And we were thinking of leaning into our strengths, rather than do something completely new, and we are very good at the spy fantasy, it seems. Bond has been an inspiration for Hitman in the early days, I won’t hide that. We had a lot of fans in the studio. So it’s kind of a dream come true to be able to work on that IP.

There was a pitch being made to MGM at the time, and it was a long shot, because they had not accepted a pitch – and they must have received a lot – for more than ten years at that time. So we thought they would never go back into gaming, but, you know, let’s try – we have something different to put on their table.

And I think what tilted the table in our favour was the creative approach that you have in Hitman: you always have multiple angles to tackle the problem, where you have those big social environments like public spaces where you can interact in different ways, which we felt could be a good starting point if we were to make a Bond experience. It’s not enough – but it’s a good starting point.

And for the licenser, it would help us prove to them that you can make video games without shooting every five minutes, right? In Hitman, you shoot maybe once per level, or not at all, sometimes. I think that opened the conversation at the very least.

And from there, how did that relationship develop after the initial pitch? Did they then come to you with certain ideas and themes about how what they wanted to explore, or was it more of a back and forth nature once that ball was rolling?

The idea was always to do an origin story from the get-go. The original pitch probably changed a lot since, because you know how it goes, but that was always the case.

It comes from us, but it’s been received really positivity. From there on, crafting it has been a collaborative operation, really. We have calls with departments twice a week for some of us. What I really like [about] working with them is they are really involved, in the sense that they really care about the project.

I was concerned at the beginning when I joined the project that, okay, you’re working with a licenser, you’re probably a side project, and you send something for approval and don’t hear back for a long time – but it’s not that at all. They’ve been really helpful, creatively and operationally, and are very solution-oriented, and a lot more daring than we thought, also, because you know – you’re touching a big franchise.

Being granted the honour to work on an origin story for the character was fantastic – and it gives us the good and the bad of having a lot of creative freedom, but you also have to come up with a lot of things!

“For the licenser, [Hitman helped] us prove to them that you can make video games without shooting every five minutes, right? In Hitman, you shoot maybe once per level, or not at all, sometimes.”

There are many films, and there are books, so we imagine that could be overwhelming, but also, in a way quite exciting to try and pick apart what those elements could be for the game.

I would say some of the inspiration that we’ve had, especially when we built the character, was looking at how he was described in the books at first, because we’re thinking – okay, we’re making an original story, it’s not really been something done much before, so how can we go about it?

We looked at the source material first, and then, I don’t think there is a specific strong inspiration from one movie over another. Of course, we’ve all watched all the movies – or most of the movies for some of us – and if you ask me, or a cinematic director who is their favourite Bond or movie, there would be different answers. Based on that, I think you will have a lot of small inspirations from different people in there, and that’s what makes Bond, Bond.

But on the other side, I think that the franchise has evolved over time. The movies from Connery are different from Brosnan and from Craig and from what we’re doing. In our case, we wanted to build an origin story first, because it’s something that’s not been done before, but also, it may make it a bit more relatable to an audience that’s younger on consoles than at the cinema, and that’s one thing as well. And it would give us a bit more freedom in telling the story that we want to say.

So it’s partly having your own stamp on Bond, but also, with the on and off nature of the films and it being away for a little while, it means you can introduce this to a newer audience.

If you want to talk about inspiration from movies, there will be some winks here and there, of course – that’s always a fun part to do – but we’re really telling a whole new story, a new take on the origin story of Bond, and we’re doing it with the gaming medium in mind. So we’re telling it in a very different way than the movie would, and we’re consuming it in a very different way because you’re engaging with him for hours, and you’re telling him what to do. The design will guide you in some ways, so in that way, it’s a very different way to craft a Bond adventure.

Was there anything off limits in terms of what you could look at with this game, or anything MGM didn’t want to see, or preferred not to see? You mentioned at the start they weren’t keen on making a pure shooter, and the creativity of IO’s past work helped. Were they very open in what you wanted to try and do?

I’ve never had that question before, so I’ll think back, but there is nothing that comes to mind outside of – yes, don’t make him a killing machine! That was the first thing. But no, generally they’ve been very open.

They’ve considered every idea we’ve had. There weren’t many massive nos or anything like that. It was always more like, “Yeah, but, we could do it this way, or…” So it’s always been very collaborative, and a lot of good feedback, because they’ve been working with the franchise for so long as well, so it was great to have them so involved in the project, right? I’m sure it was a fun ride for them as well.

And when it comes to working with MGM, that’s obviously shifted quite recently with the creative control fully going to Amazon as the creative leads. Can you talk about how that’s changed your relationship since that’s happened?

Yes, in a way, not much – because there is always MGM in the middle, right? And MGM has always been the people we’ve interacted with, and the same for most of the production team.

So on our day-to-day, not much of a change, and so far, what we’ve seen with the relationship with MGM now, the franchise is in good hands. You would expect more of an impact, but because MGM has always been the main contact and the main overseer of the project, it has been quite a smooth transition.

“They’ve considered every idea we’ve had. There weren’t many massive nos or anything like that. It was always more like, ‘Yeah, but, we could do it this way, or…’ So it’s always been very collaborative”

I imagine the game being a certain amount through development helps with that as well – a lot of things are set in stone.

That’s a good point. It was quite advanced as of the deal, and we have a very solid proposition, so we keep the course.

You can’t obviously talk specifics about the future, but what discussions have they been about how this game and your take on Bond fits in with their wider vision?

The game right now is made by IO and is been published by IO Interactive, but in terms of working with Amazon, it opens doors in the sense that, it gives us access to their sales team for Amazon.com and Twitch also for web broadcasting. We are having those talks, obviously, and it facilitates a lot of those things when you’re in the same house. So that’s great – but that’s about it.

We were talking about you’ve had history with Hitman, and it being more of a sandbox design to be openly explored, and replayed, and approached in different ways – how much of that DNA is in [007 First Light], and in the campaign in particular?

There will be some of that DNA, but the game will be very different. You were mentioning it, but Hitman, if you think of it, it’s a very open space, and you’re coming in and you’re very patient, and you’re methodical, and you’re gonna count the milliseconds before the guard passes – it’s a very patient game.

Versus First Light, the character – in a sense – is young and a bit reckless, and sometimes doesn’t have enough patience. In design, that means we have to give you a sense of forward momentum all the time, so he needs to think quick on his feet.

If the other game is more methodical, this one will be more about making you think fast under pressure, giving you a lot of options and you have to think – right, or left, or do you take all these guards? Do you blow your cover? We bring you forward all the time. So in that sense, the game is probably not as open.

There are open moments, but there are some more linear ones as well, and it would always be done because in this game compared to [Hitman], we are telling a story, so we need to kind of drive you through it. When it makes sense to open it up a little bit more, we do, and when we want to make an homage to what the franchise is about, which is sometimes very big stunts and cinematic moments, then we are going a be a bit more linear in that way.

People like to replay the Hitman games and come back to them. Are there any elements of replayability to the campaign that you’re hoping to offer?

Yes, in a different way. It’s in the DNA of the studio, so we’ll always want to give you some options to tackle a mission, so that you will have the hitch to want to revisit it and [go], “Oh, if I had accessed this room that way, or if I picked that guard instead of tracking that one, what would have happened?” So there will be some more of that too.

I think something that would lend itself to options and emergent gameplay are gadgets, something Bond is well known for. Can you talk about how that presents an opportunity here?

In terms of gadgets, it’s a big element of the arsenal of Bond, obviously. You will have a wide array of gadgets that he gets served from Q Lab, and he will be using them in passive or offensive ways.

“There are open moments, but there are some more linear ones as well, and it would always be done because in this game compared to [Hitman], we are telling a story, so we need to kind of drive you through it.”

Passive ways would be unlocking a door or hiding a camera, maybe eavesdropping on some conversation, and a more offensive way would be how you’re using your gadgets in combat to get out of a situation, or destroying an extinguisher and it gets all smoky in the middle of your shootout – so that’s how we’re approaching gadgets. For more detail, you will have to wait for the gameplay reveal.

Something else that’s been discussed in terms of replayability is the live service element, which this game will have. Can you talk more about exactly what that will look like?

It’s too early to talk about that right now, because it’s still some time away, and right now the team is very much focused on delivering an amazing campaign, and really focusing on those missions. So we’ll talk about that aspect later. Right now, that team is very much based on the story and the visions and the core gameplay. That’s what we’re taking about today, and gameplay will come also later in the summer. Again, it will be very different [from Hitman]. But there’s an element of replayability to it.

On the development side, there was a recent interview with CEO Hakan Abrak about how the Hitman series had become cheaper to make as the series goes on, which is a great contrast to other modern games on how they’re made. Does Bond benefit from that technology, or conversely, is it the case that, the plan is to spend on this game, and then hope it sort of pays off with cheaper games in the future, whether that’s Bond or otherwise?

A mix of those, I would say, because it’s not Hitman 4, which would have been an even cheaper [game] to make. But no – we’re benefitting from everything we’ve done in the past with the Hitman franchise, of course, but we are building a lot of new systems, a lot of new features, because as I was explaining, James Bond is very different from Agent 47 in terms of gameplay and the fantasy, and what we want to tell with the characters.

For instance, we had to build driving from scratch – it’s not something you do in Hitman. We had to build shooting from scratch, which sounds strange, but in Hitman, if you get to shoot, you kind of fail the mission, so it was not as developed as much as it should for a game like Bond, so we’re spent a lot of time on that early on in the development of the game. Then there’s the cover system, and the way we use the gadgets is very different, so all of that, you know, has its cost, obviously. I think the first game of every franchise is always quite a big endeavour.

And you hope it just pays off over time by having that initial investment.

It’s too early to say, right now, because right now we’re focusing on this game, right? We’ll see what the future brings – but right now the entire team, and ourselves, are really focused on delivering an amazing game. There are a lot of expectations when you’re revisiting a game or a franchise that has not been active in the gaming world for a while. So first things first – the game’s called First Light. So let’s do a good one!

On the technology note, the Switch 2 was a key part of this game’s reveal. What have you learned from the recent Hitman port to the Switch 2 to ensure that First Light comes to that platform in the best possible shape?

First of all, we have an amazing engine – the Glacier engine – and one of its strengths, and why we love to keep using it at IO Interactive, it’s that it enables us to bring a game to as many platforms as possible with limited friction. So in that aspect, it’s quite easy for us, as long as there is a new platform coming out to bring a game on it.

“We had to build shooting from scratch, which sounds strange, but in Hitman, if you get to shoot, you kind of fail the mission, so it was not as developed as much as it should for a game like Bond”

And as far as the Switch 2 goes, Nintendo has always been a great partner with us. We had brought Hitman as a cloud version on the first Switch, and now, the Switch 2 is a powerful device – powerful enough for us to bring First Light to it natively.

The recent version of Hitman launched with an uncapped framerate and had some complaints about inconsistent performance. Are graphical settings something you hope to introduce to that game at some point, but also offer in First Light as well to help there?

So for Hitman, the team is working on some of those performance issues right now, and they are addressing it over the summer. It’s of course, good learnings for us to bring for First Light as well – so all of this will be learnings we bring to the next title. It’s the first game we release on that platform, and it was a good test. The team is looking at all that feedback and acting on it as we speak.

So hopefully that’s over the next few months?

I don’t have a precise date, but probably, we’ll get back to you on that – [speaking to PR who briefly left the room, “He’s talking about performance on the Switch 2 in Hitman”] – so we can probably get back to you with a date as soon as we have one. It’s probably in my mailbox, but I didn’t check!

You had an Elusive Target from Bond, Le Chiffre, that wrapped up the other day. Will that return at some point as other Elusive Targets have done, and also, give players another chance to get that reward in First Light? Or is that one and done at this point? Was it a limited time thing?

It’s a secret that I have to keep. You will find out!

So it’s possible players might not have had their final chance, basically.

I mean, people can see what we’ve done with other Elusive Targets and give it their best guess.