'When you make games, you need a certain balance, because you need to feel like a hero as the player' – 007 First Light dev says IOI approached its original Bond story differently than the movies, says 'the same logic doesn't necessarily apply'
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Credit: IO Interactive
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007 First Light uses inspiration from the Bond movies, but the tropes have been adapted differently for the sake of game logic
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The game's franchise art director, Rasmus Poulsen, said action movie logic "does not apply to games"
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Some classic Bond tropes were adapted "to fit the modern medium"
007 First Light 's franchise art director, Rasmus Poulsen, has said that IO Interactive's next game is inspired by "classic" Bond tropes that have been adapted differently from the movies for the sake of logic.
In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom 2025 , where we also had the opportunity to try out an early demo of 007 First Light , Poulsen discussed creating a cinematic Bond game with an original story.
He explained that while IOI took inspiration from the franchise, the studio took liberties when translating action movie tropes to its game.
"You can't apply movie logic to the game world," Poulsen said, "because oftentimes, when you watch one movie with your dad and he goes, 'Actually, son...' and says something that breaks the immersion, you know that mindset probably won't get you very far.
"Oftentimes, when you make games, you need a certain balance, because you need to feel like a hero as the player. So the same logic doesn't necessarily apply. Obviously, I'm not saying here that we weren't critical of ourselves and that we didn't finesse ideas to feel great. What I'm saying is the same logic does not apply to games."
Poulsen continued, saying that the team attempted to recreate similar color grading that the older Bond movies are known for, but it didn't look right for the action game.
"Another aspect is, for instance, we were exploring color selection and color grading, and so for the car chase [in the demo] and the whole mission in general, we were inspired by color palettes of old movies, and at the same time, the treatment of that... they look sort of compressed and a little gray and a little faded. That doesn't really work for a game either, because then you think your TV is broken.
"So we really were inspired by some of these classic tropes, and then we adapted them to fit the modern medium, be it, let's say, approach or phonetics or color or presentations."
007 First Light arrives in 2026 for PC, PS5 , Xbox Series X , and Xbox Series S .
