007: First Light gets Hitman-style replayability

IO Interactive wants 007: First Light to harness Hitman’s replayability.

IO Interactive wants 007: First Light to harness Hitman’s replayability.

The studio behind the new blockbuster James Bond video game is best known for the Hitman franchise, and it’s keen to take inspiration from itself to make sure the 007 title has more to offer after the main storymode.

IO Interactive is planning to harness the Tactical Simulations (TacSim) part of the game, which is set in MI6 HQ and lets gamers take on bespoke challenges.

These tasks are basically revamped versions of existing areas in the game, but with different conditions and restrictions.

IO’s chief development officer Veronique Lallier told Eurogamer: “It’s something we’ve done very successfully with Hitma.

“We have TacSim content that will be made available after launch, and there will be a roadmap of content.”

Lallier noted that the launch of 007: First Light “is just the beginning”, as the team wants to “learn and listen to the feedback of the players”.

She added: “That’s something we’ve been doing with Hitman over a decade with a World of Assassination, and we’re going to definitely try to bring more content [here].”

However, Lallier noted that gamers shouldn’t expect the same experience as Hitman, which is more of a “sandbox” experience, while 007: First Light has more of a narrative.

She explained: “It’s completely different from Hitman and that’s something very important to say.

“Hitman is sandbox and by nature feels more open to repetition. This one is more narrative driven, so once you’ve done the story, what else can you do?

“And that’s what we’re trying to do with TacSim. There is definitely a desire for us to continue to make things evolve.”

Senior combat designer Tom Marcham has also offered a bit more detail on how TacSim will work.

He told the same outlet. “There might be encounters where there was no combat encounter there before at all, and now we’ve actually reused the space in a clever way. TacSim is basically a space in which we can remix our levels.”