When IO Interactive first announced it was making a game based on the most popular spy of all time – 007, aka Bond, James Bond – I was beyond stoked. One of my most-played games of all time is 007: Agent Under Fire on PS2. I've played through its campaign countless times and put just as many hours into its multiplayer (low gravity, grapple hooks, and rocket launchers all day), and since then, I've been wondering when a new 007 would recapture my attention in a similar way.

IO Interactive and 007, on paper, is a match made in heaven; it's peanut butter and chocolate, cookies and milk, Mountain Dew and Doritos. But when the excitement of this announcement faded, I began to question my feelings. I love the World of Assassination Hitman trilogy and IO Interactive perfected the stealth genre across its three games. I've always felt Agent 47 is basically another universe's 007, perhaps with a touch less suave and sex appeal. But I began to think to myself, "Wait, a Hitman game with a James Bond skin actually isn't what I want. My dream 007 game needs a lot more than that." Those thoughts spiraled into a great fear that IO Interactive wouldn't do enough to make 007 First Light decidedly its own creation at the studio. 

I'm so happy to say that after watching a behind-closed-doors demo of First Light at IO Interactive's rather fancy booth during Gamescom 2025, my fears have been quelled. Though the spirit of Hitman is present in the gameplay I watched, First Light is its own thing, and IO Interactive is taking big swings to deliver a type of 007 we've never seen. 

Perhaps the biggest change-up from the 007 games I've played (and loved) is that in First Light, Bond is just a recruit in MI6's training program – young, resourceful, sometimes reckless, and not the spy capable of performing in any situation, whether it's with a silenced gun in hand or a woman at his side.

Before the gameplay begins, the IO Interactive representative sets up the scene, explaining a little bit of the studio's thought process behind this version of Bond. "[This game is about] the origins of James Bond, a Bond for the players, long before his days of tuxedos and martinis," they say. "He's young and relatable, but hasn't learned the ropes of MI6." That said, there's still plenty of the Bond staples to expect, like iconic vehicles, an array of inconspicuous and powerful gadgets, and globetrotting; IO Interactive says First Light will bring players to Iceland, Slovakia, Vietnam, and more. 

"First and foremost, you're playing as a spy, not an assassin," they tell us, and I breathe a sigh of relief. "Charm, charisma, persuasion, and similar traits are part of the mix. [First Light] combines environmental and social interactions as you bluff, eavesdrop, infiltrate, and find clues to help your mission. But [Bond] is a daredevil and once the action needs to happen, it certainly does." 

This pre-gameplay presentation ends with the team explaining First Light features IO Interactive's best combat system to date, housed within a "relentless thrill ride that captures Bond at his most daring." That's a lot of PR speak, but after the gameplay I shown soon after, I see the vision.

Our mission brings Bond to the Carpathian Hotel in the Slovakian mountains. Not as a spy, though. Not even close. Today's job has Bond playing chauffeur to some other agents of MI6 after Agent 009. That's already an interesting wrinkle – MI6 is after one of its own – reminiscent of 2021's Bond film, No Time To Die. This team is to locate 009 and keep him under close watch without engaging. M, not to be confused with Moneypenny (M's assistant), calls this a "black tag operation" so discretion is critical. 

As Bond and two others swerve through windy roads leading to this hotel, it's clear First Light is IO Interactive's prettiest game... easily. The sun, clouds, and treelines above reflect off the black Jaguar Bond drives, but despite the views, he's not happy about being chauffeur – such is the life of a recruit desperate for more to do on missions. 

IO Interactive cuts in to call Bond hotheaded and stubborn, noting that this specific mission – the first in the game – "isn't just about catching 009; it's also about shaping the spy Bond will become." 

As the crew pulls in to the Carpathian Hotel to begin the mission proper, we learn 009 was the best in his day, "but that was a long time ago." Bond's teammates Cressida and Monroe tell him 009 is tired of running and getting desperate. 

After dropping off Cressida and Monroe, Bond parks the vehicle. Through a cutscene, it's made clear Bond is antsy, unable to sit patiently in a car until his teammates do what they need to... so he steps out of the car, perhaps to get some fresh air. Or maybe to take a look around. He spots a hotel worker, or someone dressed as one, dump a suitcase over a nearby railing. He tells Cressida what he sees and she orders him to stay at his post. Naturally, he ignores this, and so begins what I imagine will be a regular habit of breaking the rules. 

Instead of sticking to the car, Bond heads into the hotel. IO Interactive says First Light will feature a mix of linear and more open missions before noting this one is an open mission: infiltrate the hotel however you want. 

This is the most Hitman moment of the session as our demo guide shows us various ways to get inside by using the environment, social cues, and more. Though it all feels very Hitman, it features an air of suave that's unique to First Light. I hope there's even more of that in the final game.

After talking to a guard, it's clear that heading through a nearby entrance door isn't an option. We look around and spot an open window on the second floor and a guard near a water hose. We turn on the hose to distract this guard, and after he leaves the post, we jump into some tall flowers to avoid being seen by another nosy guard. Once hidden in the grass, we shoot a dart at the nosy guard to distract him just enough to allow us to slip by and pick up a lighter on a banister. With the lighter in hand, we slyly walk by a wheelbarrow full of dead leaves, light them on fire, and let the ensuing commotion be the distraction we need to jump over a wall, scale its railing, and climb a pipe up to the aforementioned open window. 

Once inside, our new objective is to find the hotel worker that dumped the suitcase, but when Cressida asks for Bond's status, he lies and says the parking lot he's supposed to be parked in is all quiet. 

Unfortunately, after making it a bit more into the hotel, the demo guide pulls up the menu to showcase First Light's checkpoint system. I see roughly two dozen, if not more, checkpoints for this mission, and the guide selects one later in the mission that places Bond in the middle of some action. He breaks into a car with a mystery woman sitting as a passenger, and he's then off to the races chasing after 009. Naturally, Bond has to flirt a little and we learn this mystery woman is Agent Charlotte Roth, with Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure or DGSE – an intelligence agency and France's MI6 equivalent. She and DGSE have been hunting 009 for a long time, she tells Bond.

Swerving through the mountains chasing after 009 features all the action of a Bond chase you might expect. We drive through sheep-filled fields, bash through gates, ramp over roads, and more. It looks like a blast and I wish I was on the sticks. We eventually arrive to a large plane that 009 is trying to escape on, but between him and Bond is a swath of enemies we have to take out. 

IO Interactive says Bond can only ever use "appropriate response measures," meaning he can't just kill anyone in his way. But, in this instance, he receives a License to Kill (cheeky) from MI6 and bullets start flying. The gunplay looks solid and sounds amazing, and this set piece is full of action, explosions, and more. It's already bigger and more cinematic than anything in the Hitman trilogy. 

Some more chaos ensues and we find Bond inside the plane, sneaking around and taking enemies out stealthily. We hack into the plane and then use R1 and L1 (on a PlayStation 5 DualSense controller) to bank it right and left, causing cargo and bodies to shift back and forth as we progress to the front where, hopefully, 009 is. As we move forward, we're able to adjust the plane's banking on the fly, and though it's not super clear how this works or whether it's a cinematic moment or something based on Bond's gadgetry, it's an interesting wrinkle to an objective that boils down to "shoot people in front of you and get to the cockpit."

Cinematics take over and bring us to the end of the mission, where we see Bond fall off the plane, maneuver through the air to reach enemies, and attack an adversary to take and use their parachute. 

I leave this demo highly impressed. Not only is IO Interactive refusing to go the easy route – making a Hitman game with the title 007 attached to it – but the team is going an even more challenging route by attempting to give us the man before he's the man. What I want in a 007 game is a highly capable agent that excels in any situation as if he's been doing this forever. Instead, First Light promises a cinematic adventure where we learn how a reckless but promising young man becomes the agent we all know and love. 

I still have so many questions, and I need to see a lot more of this game, but this demo has me seated for whatever IO Interactive will share from it next. 007 First Light launches on March 27, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC.

Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles remakes one of the greatest tactics games of all-time, adding to it quality-of-life updates, a new visual style, full VO, and more. When it was revealed in June, I was thrilled – it's not the easiest game to legally play these days, a challenge emphasized by Square Enix famously losing the game's source code after rewriting over it when bringing the game to the West after its Japanese release. But I wasn't necessarily thrilled about some of the changes. 

The biggest change is the new visual style, which, while faithful to the original pixel art in a way, doesn't hold a candle to said original art. I had always dreamed of an HD-2D remake of Tactics, and the reveal of The Ivalice Chronicles in June killed that dream. 

After playing the game for about an hour in Cologne, Germany, during Gamescom 2025, I'm still left wishing this was an HD-2D remake – I just don't think the new visual style does much for me. You can, fortunately, switch to the original visual style of the game, but not without a major caveat: the modern upgrades, quality of life changes, fully voiced characters, and updated UI are part of the enhanced version of Tactics, or in other words, the visually redone version of Tactics. The new cutscene style is incredible, though.

I'm still not sold on the fully voiced characters, either. They sound great at times... and not so great at other times. I'll admit: I love Tactics and have imagined different characters in my head and perhaps my dissatisfaction stems from VO not matching what's always played in my head. That said, I hope the cast grows on me more in the full release. 

The rest of The Ivalice Chronicles, however, is incredible, and that's largely because Square Enix has made some smart quality-of-life changes to an already fantastic game. The short of it is that The Ivalice Chronicles plays amazingly (at least in the hour I checked out) and that's because it's the Tactics you know and love. 

 

Combat feels great, and navigating the battlefield, planning moves, and solving the various encounters, which feel like mini-puzzles to figure out, is good fun. New features include a "tactical view" that makes scouting the battlefield easier, an easier way to confirm turn order, fast-forward options (similar to Square Enix's other remastered Final Fantasy releases like Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age), auto-save in battles (a true lifesaver), and more. It's not hard to see how these features will enhance the game after one hour of trying them out, and they allow you to better focus your time and efforts into things like the job system, party strategy, and more. 

Square Enix says The Ivalice Chronicles includes additional conversations and dialogue, but I didn't notice anything revelatory – a con of just one hour with a game, no doubt. That said, I'm slightly anxious about the new dialogue as Tactics features an excellent story. Does it need more dialogue? Need is a strong word, but if what's new can match what's already there, then I'm all for it. 

After its reveal in June, The Ivalice Chronicles shot up high on my list of most anticipated games launching in 2025. After playing an hour of the game, it's still high up on that list. Though I'm not sold on the new visuals and VO, I can't deny how exciting it is to have a new excuse to jump into one of the genre's best. 

Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch 2, Switch, and PC on September 30. 

Take-Two Interactive Software, the publisher behind Ken Levine's next game Judas, Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series, and the upcoming Borderlands 4, was in talks to save the recently canceled Perfect Dark reboot, according to a new report from Bloomberg. While Crystal Dynamics owner Embracer Group was close to striking this deal with Take-Two, negotiations ultimately failed, leading to last week's layoffs at Crystal Dynamics. 

Bloomberg writes that Embracer "had come close to striking a deal" with Take-Two to purchase the game from Xbox, which owned the rights, but that discussions collapsed "at least in part because the companies involved were unable to come to terms over long-term ownership of the Perfect Dark franchise," according to its sources. 

Unfortunately, with layoffs at Crystal Dynamics and these negotiations ending, it seems the Perfect Dark reboot is officially dead. 

Xbox and The Initiative, a new studio formed specifically for this game, revealed this Perfect Dark reboot in 2020. We learned The Initiative was teaming up with Tomb Raider series developer Crystal Dynamics in 2021, and a long three years later, in 2024, we got our first look at Perfect Dark gameplay. 

That 2024 gameplay showing was the last we saw or heard about Perfect Dark before it was canceled in July. 

[Source: Bloomberg]

In the latest "Can't believe this hasn't already happened" installment of news, a Call of Duty film is in the works. Paramount, the movie and television studio behind Top Gun: Maverick, Halo, and more, announced today that it struck a deal with Call of Duty publisher Activision to produce a live-action feature-length film. 

"Under this milestone partnership, Paramount will develop, produce, and distribute a live-action feature film based on Call of Duty, designed to thrill its massive global fan base by delivering on the hallmarks of what fans love about the iconic series, while boldly expanding the franchise to entirely new audiences," a press release reads. "Both companies are committed to honoring the brand's rich narrative and distinctive style, promising an authentic and exciting experience for longtime fans and newcomers alike." 

Activision president Rob Kostich writes in the press release that this movie will "honor and expand upon what has made this franchise great in the first place" to create an "unforgettable blockbuster movie." Paramount CEO and chairman David Ellison writes, "We're approaching this film with the same disciplined, uncompromising commitment to excellence that guided our work on Top Gun: Maverick, ensuring it meets the exceptionally high standards this franchise and its fans deserve." 

There's no word on which direction this film adaptation of Call of Duty will take, but considering the game series has featured campaigns set during World War 2, the Vietnam War, riffs on the War on Terrorism, as well as fictional modern war campaigns, and stories set in the near future and far future, too, Paramount has plenty to work with. 

While waiting to learn more about this movie, check out Game Informer's preview of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and then check out the cinematic reveal trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, which launches on November 14. 

p> I said yes to a one-hour hands-on preview of Turok: Origins at Gamescom 2025 because of dinosaurs. I thoroughly enjoyed my one-hour hands-on preview of Turok: Origins at Gamescom 2025 because of – surprise – dinosaurs. It turns out, shooting dinosaurs with futuristic bows and arrows, shotguns, and light machine guns while using special class-specific abilities rules. Though my initial impressions of the game are "shooting dinos makes my brain go brrr," there are a few more things about Origins to be excited about. 

Chief among them: Saber Interactive. Director Jesús Iglesias states that Saber's Madrid studio is the primary team behind Origins, but notes that more than 250 people in Madrid and various other Saber studios worldwide are working on the game. Though Madrid's last main game was Evil Dead: The Game, a fine but short-lived asymmetrical experience, Saber's track record of reviving almost-dead franchises, like last year's Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, gives me confidence that Origins isn't going to be a failed reboot a la 2008's Turok, which effectively killed the mainline franchise. It was oddly refreshing to hear Iglesias explain that Origins is looking to the successes of the first four Turok games and decidedly not 2008's iteration either. 

Before jumping into the game alongside two other members of the press, we selected our classes amongst Raven, Cougar, or Bison. It's here that Iglesias explains Origins leans heavily into Native American and indigenous culture, connecting to the first two Turok games, which did the same. However, Origins is technically the first Turok story in the in-universe narrative. Naturally, we follow up by asking Iglesias how the team handled this aspect of the game – he says Native American culture was built into the studio's first pitch for bringing back Turok, and hired Native American culture consultants to ensure its work was enriching and respectful, not offensive. The animal-based classes represent the game's use of Native American culture, Iglesias explains. 

I don't experience enough to tell how ingrained that culture is in Turok: Origins, but for gameplay purposes, the Raven, Cougar, and Bison represent different classes with skill trees built around "Mantles." These are the suits your characters wear in Origins that allow them to splice the DNA of creatures, plants, and other elements of nature into their Mantle to gain special abilities and powers. Unfortunately, I don't get to see how this Mantle works beyond the preset classes we use in our demo. 

As for the demo, though, I had a really great time. The gunplay feels great, and I appreciate the wide variety of weapons and weapon types already on display. I utilized a light machine gun with a big charge-up before it unloads an onslaught of bullets that rip into the flesh of whatever's in front of it. I also used a chunky shotgun with a lot of firepower and a strange, cool green-orb launcher that melts enemy health with an acid-like effect. Additionally, I wielded a bow and arrow that felt like a sniper rifle – slow but powerful at range. The gunplay isn't anything extraordinary, but it felt good on the sticks, and again, when your primary enemy is various dinosaurs, it's hard not to have a good time. 

I enjoyed switching between a first and third-person perspective on the fly with the d-pad, and it's impressive how quick the transition is and how good both perspectives feel. I genuinely don't know which one I'll choose, though my Space Marine 2 habits have me thinking the latter. 

The weakest part of the demo was the objectives. I couldn't tell you what we were tasked with doing; it's a hodge-podge of sci-fi mumbo jumbo and progress-forward-to-this-point-and-kill-everything-along-the-way, but with grappling, light platforming, and a small defend-this-area section, I wasn't bored with things to do. The animal class abilities allowed me to do massive AOE damage, put up a deployable shield, and shoot a horde of wasps (or some other insect) at enemies to dispose of them quickly, and while visually neat, they aren't all that different from the types of abilities and ultimates you find in any other class-based game. I hope the skill trees I didn't get to see allow me to morph my classes into something more distinct. 

Some additional things have me excited for Origins, like Saber's desire to expand on unexplained narrative elements of the series' past and the way it integrates Native American and Indigenous culture into both the story and gameplay, but ultimately, my desire for more comes down to one simple thing: I like shooting dinosaurs with big guns, and Origins is excelling at that so far.