‘Bond often starts without a gun in the movies, and he can solve that creatively’ — 007 First Light combat designer on the method behind its bombastic brawls

Upcoming James Bond game 007 First Light is shaping up to be the ultimate spy fantasy, offering not only satisfying stealth but also bombastic action and combat that combines third-person cover shooting and intense melee brawls.

The fights are frantic and improvisational, qualities that senior combat designer (and self-professed ‘director of violence’) Tom Marcham argues are deeply rooted in the Bond franchise.

“We didn’t want the game to just be guns. We needed close combat, and it needed to be an important part of the game,” he said in a recent interview with TechRadar Gaming.

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“Bond often starts without a gun in the movies, and he can solve that creatively. He often runs out of ammo. He is often in really bad circumstances where anyone else would die, and he can turn it around with wits and creativity.”

Encounters are shaped by intelligent enemy AI, with guards reacting realistically to your actions in a predictable manner that can be exploited by savvy players. “We make sure our enemies don’t want to kill their friends,” Marcham revealed.

“If you’re in a messy fist fight with someone, they’re not going just come in and shoot the other guard, right? But you can use that to your advantage, and just because they don’t want to doesn’t mean they won’t. You can use that to your advantage as well.”

According to Marcham, the goal is to create a “crazy loop” of “James Bond-style fight sequences” that escalate realistically. The combat system is designed to be a little tricky at first, with the player’s mastery of it reflecting the young Bond’s own growth as a spy.

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“My hope is that at the start of the game, when you run out of ammo, you’ll feel a little scared,” he said. “By the end of game, when you run out of ammo and you see the heavily armored guy with a shotgun coming towards you, you’ll think that he should be scared, because you’re James Bond”

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THUNDERBALL | Bond and Emilio Largo battle – YouTube

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Marcham also detailed some of the research that went into crafting the game’s combat behind the scenes. He said the team “spent a long time looking” at what makes the perfect Bond fight across both the movies and the original Ian Fleming books.

“We looked at the James Bond fights from the Daniel Craig era, which obviously has the most developed and choreographed fight scenes, all the way back,” he began.

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“Our throw mechanic is a reference to Thunderball,” he added — referring to the player’s ability to somewhat hilariously stagger enemies by pelting everything from nearby keyboard to coffee cups and even empty weapons at them with the tap of a button (you can check out the closing fight scene between Bond and Emilio Largo and his henchmen above).

“We went right the way back, and we even looked at the books a lot for this kind of stuff. Though the close combat in the books is a little less defined, because you can’t see it so clearly.”

He described distilling everything down to a “kind of jumble” of ideas with “some common patterns” like “creativity” and Bond’s propensity for “the smart and inventive” in fights.

“He was always grabbing something and throwing something, or doing something with the environment, and it wasn’t always clear at the beginning that was there was an opportunity for it. He would walk into a space and it wouldn’t seem like there’s any opportunity in there, then in the middle of the fight, something sharp turns up, and he grabs it.”

Overall, Marcham is “incredibly proud” of the mechanics his team has created. “We’re really excited to give it to players,” he added.

007 First Light is set to launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC on May 27, 2026. A Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game will follow later this year.

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