For all the reported toil and general sluggishness with the James Bond license at owners Amazon MGM, working with them has actually been “the easy part” for 007: First Light developer IOI Interactive, according the game’s art director Rasmus Poulsen.
Talking to Eurogamer during a recent interview, which you can read much more from in our big 007: First Light hands-on preview, Poulsen shed some additional light – pardon the pun – on what that relationship with Bond’s sort-of-new, if not exactly productive, license holders was like.
“We all have these expectations ahead of us,” he said. “How do we want to play with these expectations? Then it starts with the youthfulness, which becomes a differentiator – something different, something that isn’t what you expect. At the same time, we all have these things that we know we want to be a part of – experiences, locations, flavours, vibes, whatnot. And then you start crafting from that with these tenets in mind, or this tension between the expected and the new.”
In terms of working with Amazon MGM, and indeed the other “partners” involved in a licensing mega-vehicle such as Bond – think Omega, Aston Martin, and so on – “these expectations I just described to you, everybody’s got them,” Poulsen said. “That makes it either easier or more difficult to have a conversation.” That’s why, he explained, when the studio did what Poulsen calls “the DNA work” on reverse-engineering the right elements for their version of Bond, “all of a sudden it is more factual and easy to speak to, because the research has been done.”
“In that sense, it was very easy, from a partnership point of view, to discuss these things – who he is and what we want to achieve and all that stuff – because we’ve been very thorough with our homework and quite clear in our intention with the youthful Bond.
“So in a sense,” he continued, “the premise is easy to understand, easy to discuss and easy to – we say – establish a point of view. That’s the good part, and then, of course, delivering it, then that’s the challenge. But in all honesty it’s been surprisingly straightforward to have the discussions about who, what, where, with understanding what we’re trying to achieve. And I think that part of the journey was surprising to me – that it has gone so relatively smoothly.”
If you’re up to date with live-action Bond you’ll probably understand the surprise. Since Amazon MGM purchased the rights to James Bond outright from long-time custodians Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson in early 2025 (Amazon having already owned 50 percent since its 2022 acquisition of MGM), very little progress has been made on bringing a new version of the character to the screen. Acclaimed filmmaker Denis Villeneuve – of Dune, Blade Runner: 2049, Arrival, and more – as well as Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight, have been brought on as director and writer respectively. But while rumours have periodically surfaced about who might play Bond himself, little else seems to have progressed.
The latest twist is a column in The Telegraph, published yesterday, by film critic Tim Robey. It features an extraordinary paraphrasing of a quote from a “middle-aged American film executive”, that was overheard by the writer’s colleague, by coincidence, in a five-star European hotel while the unnamed colleague was there on holiday.
The exec reportedly called Bond “an old British spy” and a bit of a nightmare, and described Amazon MGM’s management as “fed up with even thinking about 007’s future” – in Robey’s paraphrased terms. According to this overheard conversation, per Robey, “no one expects the next phase of Bond to be a success for the studio at all.”
It makes for some fascinating context to be releasing a triple-A James Bond game into – a situation where, curiously and perhaps rarely for a game adaptation of a major license, developer IO Interactive finds itself setting the tone, with the only currently active version of the series’ main character.
On that point, when I put it to him, Poulsen was a little more coy. “I think it’s important to say that we are doing our Bond for you, the gamers,” he said. “That’s what we’re focusing on – and again, that’s where the youth comes in,” referencing the decision to start with a rookie Bond before – and then while – he earns his 007 number.
“Of course, we’ve taken this project immensely seriously, both because, on the one hand, it feels like we were made for it – I’m speaking personally in terms of my own career and being inspired by [Bond]. But a lot of us feel like we were made for it.
“But also because it’s a big deal, and [Bond] coming back into games after 14 years is a big deal as well. So we’ve certainly taken on the task with a huge amount of reverence – but also a huge amount of excitement for being able to dive in and do that DNA work, take the work seriously. It has been immensely fun. We’re incredibly proud to have worked on this fresh take on the guy – for you the gamers. I can’t wait.”
