We Get One Shot At This: Why 007 First Light is the Most Important game of 2026

By Oliver Giles

007 First Light is the most important game of 2026, bar none.

Yes, I am well aware that we are supposedly finally getting GTA VI this year, and I'm just

as excited for that as everyone else, but, First Light represents a light in the black for many

gamers: hope that if something is truly beloved by enough people, there is always a chance it will

return.

As the title implies, this piece is about hope, and it will be, but we've got to go through

some nasty stuff first.

As a kid of the 2000s, James Bond was the coolest thing in the world to me. By the time

we arrived at the series' 50th anniversary in 2012, I'd seen all of the films, played almost all of

the 3D-era games, and had even read the original novels. With all this in mind, I was

understandably incredibly excited for the release of 007 Legends in October.

Less than four months later, everything was on fire. Legends was a complete disaster;

Eurocom went bust, and a drought of Bond games began that would last for almost 14 years. Not

only did this kill the Bond game IP, but, due to what may have been intentional sabotage by

Activision, the boundless greed of this era cost us the real gem of a studio that was Bizarre

Creations. To say I felt crushed would be an understatement.

I'm not here to give a history lesson on why 007 Legends was a failure; it can be summed up by

the fact that the developers had under a year to make it. Instead, I'm here to talk about how

insatiable corporate greed killed a franchise that seemed immortal, and how that same

corporation continues to infect the rest of the industry with its plague to this day.We all know who James Bond is. Suave, superspy who gets all the ladies. The films are iconic

and, to many, so are the games.

From Goldeneye on the N64 all the way through the mid-2000s, we got some amazing

007 games, some of which were among the best on their respective platforms, in my opinion, and

a majority of which were published by Electronic Arts.

However, surprisingly, given the topic of this piece, I'm not focusing on EA for once.

Maybe it was because I loved the films, or maybe it was because I wasn't allowed to own more

violent FPS games like Call of Duty growing up, but the Bond series quickly became my

favorite.

Then Activision showed up.

Activision would publish four, technically five, 007 games between 2008 and 2012, the

results of which I will never forgive them for.

Two dead studios, one of which may have been a result of previously mentioned sabotage

and the other of pure mismanagement, and a reputation so tarnished we still feel its effects over a

decade later.

What makes this all worse is that they continue to get away with this even now.

If my saying that Activision forced Eurocom to make 007 Legends in less than a year

sounded familiar, it's because the exact same process and result happened with the dreadful

MW3 remake a few years ago. Along with pushing half-baked games out the door to make quick

cash, the publisher is also responsible for a lot of the horrendous microtransactions in games

nowadays. While they certainly didn't originate the concept, they continue to push $20+ cosmetic

bundles in an already $70 game every year, and people keep buying it.

Or at least, they did.The massive flop of Black Ops 7 last year is one of the biggest signs of hope the gaming

community has had in a long time. It shows that we're getting fed up with the same slop year

after year, as well as the insane DLC prices.

Paid add-ons aren't anything new; even 007 First Light has a "Deluxe Edition" available,

but at least that stuff is free if you preorder. Not perfect, but much better.

Like I said in the opening, 007 First Light is the most important game of the year. If this

game can bring the Bond gaming franchise back from what seemed like an unrecoverable

position for so many years, then it might be enough to push these big publishers to revive the

series we actually care about, or sell the rights to someone who will. Maybe in a few years' time,

I'll be able to write about how a new Burnout or Trials game brought the franchise back from

extinction.

   With IO Interactive, both developing and publishing First Light, I can't wait to see what

a studio can do with the Bond license when they don't have to adhere to anyone else's schedule.

007 First Light really is the light that we need right now.