James Bond is missing in movies but thriving in video games

For a film series that once felt ubiquitous at the multiplex, James Bond has spent much of the 21st century missing in action.

Five years after No Time to Die gave Daniel Craig a mercifully conclusive farewell, the future of the eponymous super-spy has never felt less certain. The rights to Bond have since been sold, with long-standing franchise stewards Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson ceding control over their family's empire to the newly-formed Amazon MGM Studios.

Underpinning this fallow period is a tension that was frequently lampshaded, but remained unresolved even by the end of Craig's tenure: how do you update a retrograde power fantasy into a contemporary action hero?

007 First Light, the first Bond video game to release in 14 years, jettisons the last two decades of baggage to craft a fresh origin for the elite MI6 agent — and finally proves that one of cinema's most impenetrable icons has a place within our current gaming landscape.

In contrast to Craig's embittered, obsolescing secret agent, the James Bond of First Light (played by Dexter: Original Sin's Patrick Gibson) is only in his mid-20s when he's recruited into MI6's rebooted 00 program. It's refreshing to play as a trainee eager to prove his mettle, and who is well-adjusted enough to have friends. He finally even gets a scar on his face, sticking true to his literary description.

Yet he's every bit as smarmy, horny and impertinent as his silver screen antecedents, to the point where you don't mind seeing him get his teeth kicked in by a henchman when you mistime a parry in any of the game's hand-to-hand brawls.

Perhaps more than any iteration of Bond since Roger Moore, this younger Bond is a man of leisure. Luxury has always been key to the appeal of the character — a masculine ideal initially sculpted by the hedonism of the Playboy era — and First Light is frequently willing to indulge players in the pleasures of his lifestyle.

The developers of IO Interactive (renowned for the Bond-inspired Hitman series) provide opportunities to take in the sights while trailing a mysterious assailant through the Carpathian mountains, mingle at a sprawling gala event you've gatecrashed, or enjoy a cocktail by the pool of an elite jungle resort. For die-hard fans, the opportunity to run wild in the gizmo cornucopia of Q-Lab may be the strongest temptation of all.

First Light most invigoratingly channels the spirit of Bond — specifically Daniel Craig's scrappy, resourceful incarnation — when you're giving free rein to sneak, punch, or shoot your way through a given sequence.

You'll likely find yourself scurrying around behind cover, bluffing your way through oblivious guards, and quietly picking off any henchmen in your way before one mistake launches into a frenzied scrap. There's a terrific tension to containing these unexpected skirmishes without triggering an alarm, and you can quickly gain the upper hand by tampering with an electrical system, hurling an iron at a goon's face, or charging an armoured foe down a flight of stairs — before slinking into the next area unnoticed.

Alternatively, you can simply operate as a one-man wrecking ball; it's not like James Bond has ever excelled at subtlety. In the best levels, the player has the flexibility to decide what kind of 007 they'd like to be.

A generation of Bonds

What fascinates most about James Bond is the way his character has been grafted onto different genre templates across the years. Moonraker shamelessly cashed in on the Star Wars craze of the late 70s; Licence to Kill entertainingly aped Miami Vice; Casino Royale set the new gold standard by borrowing from Jason Bourne.

Previous attempts at porting the character into a video game have led to even more eclectic results.

Bond made his gaming debut in 1982 with the unlicensed text adventure Shaken, Not Stirred, which was filled with transparent knock-off characters and the ability to replenish health with amphetamines. The official movie tie-ins that followed that decade cycled through various other forms, including a side-scrolling vehicle shooter (James Bond 007), a speedboat shooter (Live and Let Die), and a top-down shoot 'em up (007: Licence to Kill).

Looming over any new Bond game is the spectre of GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 — one of the most beloved games of its console generation. Created by a crack team of developers at British developer Rare (Donkey Kong Country) who had never made a first-person shooter, this tie-in for Pierce Brosnan's debut defied all expectations with its complex level design, innovative controls and friendship-ruining multiplayer mode.

It's no exaggeration to call it one of the most influential console shooters of all time, to the extent that its fingerprints can still be found all over 007 First Light. Even back in 1997, GoldenEye understood the spirit of James Bond was best conveyed through a mix of stealth and spectacle that required tactical thinking on behalf of the player while navigating open-ended environments.

Under publisher EA, Bond would enjoy an annual run of first- and third-person shooters throughout the Brosnan films, with the latest gaming hardware now able to support jet packs, gadget-heavy driving missions (see also: 007 Racing), and truly outlandish spectacle.

The advancements made in the sixth console generation also saw Hollywood actors sharing their voices and a more recognisable likeness in games; Willem Dafoe chewed the scenery as a supervillain intent on destroying the Kremlin with nanobots, Sean Connery starred in a From Russia With Love adaptation, and Judi Dench could be routinely heard feeding mission briefs into your earpiece.

Once Activision took over the Bond licence, the games would generally fall in line with the gameplay and style of Call of Duty, culminating in the disastrous launch of 007 Legends for the 50th anniversary – leaving Bond’s gaming career dormant until First Light.

A link between screens

The increasingly tortured production cycles of movies and games alike have meant limited-edition Fortnite events have more or less replaced the once abundant movie tie-in game. Meanwhile, the recent Spider-Man and Star Wars Jedi games paved the way for First Light by proving Hollywood IP can be carefully nurtured through expensive, ultra-cinematic spin-off games.

007 First Light doesn't always make for a harmonious marriage between the studio's stealthy sensibilities and its Uncharted-esque style of storytelling (the amount of walking and talking involved can make you wonder: why isn't this just a movie?). Like any James Bond film, the narrative is barely strong enough to sustain a whole two hours, to say nothing of the campaign's 20-hour length.

Nevertheless, it's an exciting new take on Bond, and the first time he's felt truly at home in the modern video game space.

There's even a case to be made that First Light is the MI6 operative's most cohesive outing in decades.

For all the dizzying highs of the latest films, they struggled in their attempts to build a flesh-and-blood character out of an archetype. Bond can be many things — a family melodrama is not one of them.

Perhaps counterintuitively, Bond endures precisely because he's a dusty relic of former imperial glory. The less seriously we take his pretensions and the more honest we are about his red-blooded appeal, the more easily he can be retrofitted into the next big thing.

007 First Light is out now.