I had to meet 007 First Light on its terms to truly enjoy it

I would imagine that are quite a few video-game-playing James Bond fans who've been holding their breath for a while in the hopes that IO Interactive would make a 007 game. The pairing seems like a textbook example of the right license being given to the right developer. Honestly, I don't think I've seen a pairing that seemed this ideal on paper since the publisher of Stellaris announced a Star Trek strategy game. Thankfully for James Bond fans, First Light turned out a lot better than the ill-fated Star Trek: Infinite.

IO Interactive's resume primarily consists of the Hitman games, which (despite liking stealth games a lot), I have actually never gotten around to playing. Hitman has been near universally praised for its immersive-sim stealth gameplay, and sprawling, open-ended level design. First Light ended up being my introduction to IO's particular brand of stealth game, and it sure makes an excellent first impression!

Becoming Bond

007: First Light's prologue and tutorial are absolutely top-notch narrative game design. In the prologue chapter, the player is given a disguise while infiltrating a heavily-guarded enemy-occupied outpost. This allows the player to move about somewhat freely while getting used to the basic controls and game systems, while still maintaining a sense of threat and tension.

The first proper chapter is a training montage in which the player will likely screw up their first attempts at tasks.

It then proceeds to put the player in a montage of bootcamp training scenes that serve as quick tutorials for the more intermediate and advanced mechanics and controls. This sequence is one of the best-conceived video game tutorials that I've ever played. It throws the player right into a task with only the bare minimum of guidance. This might initially seem unfair or counter-productive for a tutorial. But since it is framed as a training montage, the game expects the player to barely succeed at the task -- and maybe even fail it outright. And it jumps to the next training scene before you really even have time to worry about the fact that you didn't perform very well -- let alone to try to pause the game and restart at a checkpoint (more on that later). As the montage goes on, however, you'll get other chances to perform these tasks with a bit more knowledge of what to expect and also often with more favorable conditions. As such, each time the player is tasked with performing a specific type of task, you'll probably be more successful at performing it, and will likely perform it more quickly, more skillfully, and more instinctively, which perfectly mirrors Bond's own improvement within the story.

It's quite a clever bit of level design, and this tutorial is a near-perfect marriage of gameplay, narrative, and learning under pressure. Obviously, this sort of tutorial wouldn't necessarily translate to other games. I would assume that in any potential future sequel to First Light, James Bond won't be going through basic training again as part of the story. So unless a potential sequel has the player playing as a new recruit (a 008, perhaps?) before being put in the tux of Bond, this tutorial is likely a one-of-a-kind lightning-in-a-bottle situation. In its context as a prequel/reboot/origin story, this is a damn near perfect introductory couple of hours to both the character and the gameplay.

Near perfect marks, all around! I have basically no notes.