GoKawiilYou start the game when Bond is a lowly airman with no connection to MI:6. After your plane is shot down by a mysterious private military group you have to quietly avoid soldiers while learning the game's basic stealth routine. It works like you'd expect: You can hide in or behind cover to avoid enemies, and there's a subtle awareness gauge as they see you. I appreciated the ability to run to cover, since it made Bond feel a bit more nimble than someone like Uncharted's Nathan Drake. (The game also delivers a subtle jab at Drake, joking that Bond is starting to resemble an archaeologist adventurer.)
IOI doesn't rush anything in 007: First Light. There's a large chunk of time before you're able to take down enemies from stealth, and it takes even longer to get unrestricted access to guns. There's around three hours before you're on your first genuine assignment. In between, you're attending MI:6's training camp, where Bond makes a few close friends (and potential enemies).
IOI spices up the obligatory tutorial with unusually cinematic flair. At one point, the game compresses the martial arts, shooting and parkour trainings into a single fluid sequence, exactly like a montage in film. I barely had time to process that I was jumping between completely different actions and locations. Before I knew it, Bond was field-ready (and I knew which buttons to press.)
As you step into the world of MI:6, you also get equipped with a variety of hardware from Q, the character who typically outfits Bond with high-tech gadgets. The Q-Watch lets you hack into nearby electronics, similar to the hacking mechanic in Ubisoft's Watch Dogs. The dart phone can instantly poison people; a laser strap can cut through locks and blind baddies; the missile pen is what you think it is. They're not all useful — I never found a reason to equip the Shockwave Camera or Flash Mine – but at least they let you tune the game to your liking.
Beyond Bond's hardware, technology also plays an enormous role in 007: First Light. It turns out that MI:6 has also partnered with a tech billionaire for — say it with me now — an AI supercomputer that sorts through all of the world's available information. THEAI, a reference to the Greek goddess of foresight (and oh so close to just being "the AI"), has apparently been a smashing success for Britain, but the dystopian implications are clear from the start. How can we tell if an all-powerful AI makes mistakes? And wouldn't it be possible for a technology giant to manipulate the AI's discoveries for its own gain?