007 First Light is the first time IO Interactive has taken on an outside project, but CEO Hakan Abrak isn't worried: 'We're able to stand on the shoulders of ourselves'

It's been five long years since IO Interactive first announced that it would be taking on Project 007, now known as 007 First Light. It's a pairing that goes together seamlessly, as IO has been making Hitman games for almost 25 years now. But even with all that practice, it was still a huge undertaking.

"Understanding the IP, the hardcore nucleus of the IP, has been very important for us," Hakan Abrak, CEO of IO Interactive, told me at Gamescom. "This is the first time that IO Interactive, in our 25-plus years of existence, is working on another IP, not our own original creative IP."

"There's always a care and meticulousness that we put into our worlds," Abrak says. "But we want to do that more here out of respect for the legacy of this fantastic IP, that's been going from strength to strength over all these years. You want to treat it with respect, you want to involve yourself in understanding the finer details of the IP, and you want to do it justice."

But doing it justice doesn't mean playing it safe, at least not for IO. 007 First Light takes everything that IO has learnt making the Hitman series, with the added benefit of consulting the stewards of James Bond, and the ambition to innovate and take new creative leaps.

"We've been very ambitious," Abrak says. "IO is known for creating these sub-worlds and cities for globetrotting. It has definitely been one of the pillars of our games to get to travel around the world and get behind the scenes, in the VIP spaces where mere mortals like you and me may not get to go to all the time to experience all these things."

Speak for yourself, Abrak. I once managed to skirt behind the scenes of a McDonalds. But in all seriousness, one of the best parts of watching the first mission of 007 First Light at the Gamescom hands-off was seeing Bond walk into the Grand Carpathian Hotel.

I say walk in a loose sense—it was more of a crawl, scamper, and climb. After being stuck on lookout/chauffeur duty while his fellow agents got to waltz through the front door and attend some high society event, Bond decided to make his own way into the hotel after witnessing some dodgy behaviour.

Bond can't just rely on his fighting prowess to get to the next objective—he has to outwit people. So instead of knocking out the guards at the front door, Bond took the side staff entrance.

The bustling staff entrance had just enough people and tools to give Bond plenty of options for entry. He could try swiping an employee card off some unsuspecting worker taking a break, distract a guard with an errant hose pipe and then take him out with a small sleep dart, or distract a waiter taking a smoke break by setting off a small fire nearby, to then walk behind him and climb down the side of the hotel to enter through a window. He was caught doing this, but managed to calm onlookers by simply telling them he was a security contractor testing entry points for weaknesses.

"Using clues and the like to overcome obstacles," Abrak continues. "I think that's where IO can deliver something, more than just a set piece. We're able to stand on the shoulders of ourselves, upping the skill and delivering that in a Bond game."

But it's not like IO's time creating First Light was without any bumps in the road. "There were other areas where we knew we really needed to up our technical prowess," Abrak adds. "So what you see is our own engine. It's completely new and revamped from scratch. New animation system, new aiming combat systems, and music systems.

"We wanted that cinematic experience. We wanted to create a game that is breathing. Sometimes the chest opens up, the level opens up, and you're like, okay, so how do I get to the second floor? Are there several different ways of doing that? But sometimes we want to, as developers, have a curated experience like action set pieces and more intimate levels, we want to control that."

Going from the grand yet small world of the Carpathian hotel to the open road looked brilliant, and that's not just because I enjoy a good car chase. As someone who enjoys action set pieces more than sneaking around places where I shouldn't be, having both instances sprinkled between one another seems like a great way to break up the action of gunfights and the tension of infiltration missions.

This 'breathable' structure of 007 First Light has been instrumental for IO to give players the "complete 360-degree Bond experience," cocktail parties, car chases, fights atop aeroplanes and all, and it's what makes this game so enticing.