hen I played 007: First Light earlier this year, one element of it stood out to me as unusual—and that is the arc relating to Bond’s fellow 00 trainees, Cressida Bright and Lennox Monroe. IO Interactive puts a huge amount of work into building these characters, successfully selling you on the inherently bizarre concept of James Bond having flatmates.
Yet just as you warm to these characters, they vanish from the story, and after MI6’s failed operation to eliminate the rogue 009 in Slovakia, Bond primarily teams up with his mentor, Greenway.
All of this is well portrayed. But the cadence of it nonetheless struck me as odd while playing. It turns out there might be a reason for this. IO Interactive initially intended for First Light to be less squarely focused on Bond, while his pals would have played a much bigger role in the story.
Speaking to Eurogamer, First Light’s lead writer Michael Vogt explained how the game’s first act came together. “During the training sequence, we make a false promise,” Vogt said. “Basically, we’re saying ‘This is going to be an ensemble piece, all the 00s working together, as they do in Slovakia’.