You can’t have an origin story without a training montage. That’s standard issue stuff even for future MI6 man James Bond. I was expecting the usual “press the thumb stick to crouch” and “here’s how to throw a punch” bits, but 007 First Light double-ohs down by putting you through Bond bootcamp for three entire hours.
When I finally cleared what I thought was the full tutorial segment and then heard the words “advanced training” I may have audibly groaned. Don’t share my despair; I’ll lay out the list of tutorial missions, what you can expect from them, and the approximate time it took me to complete each one so you know what you’re in for.
007 First Light tutorial missions
Here’s your list of the main 007 First Light tutorial missions. There are some other named chapters taking up time between these sections with the walkin’ and talkin’ and Q branch visiting, but the four tutorial missions below are the bulk of the action you’ll need to complete.
|
Mission Title |
Time |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Against The Odds |
40 mins |
Learn the basics of stealth and movement as soldier Bond accidentally winds up in contact with MI6 on a mission gone sideways. |
|
The Needle’s Eye |
30 mins |
This is the actual montage-y training portion with combat, driving, and gunplay as James meets his fellow 00 recruits at a Malta training compound. |
|
A New Home |
30 mins |
Bond goes into advanced training, so this portion is mostly two separate capture the flag stealth and combat sequences in Malta mixed with some trainee agent team building time. |
|
A Night Out |
30 mins |
IOI’s obligatory nightclub level which plays mostly like a real mission: tailing leads, making choices, and using gadgets, though still holding your hand a bit. |
Aside from the overall time to complete the training segment being quite long, I didn’t hate it—though some other members of the PCG team did, so your tolerance may vary. In particular, the smash cut interactive montage portion of The Needle’s Eye, Bond’s first stint in Malta, was quite a fun concept to play through.
You may also find that A New Home takes you a bit longer to complete than it did for me. I’d gotten a bit fed up with Malta by that point, so when I got plonked back into that next daytime capture-the-flag exercise I admit I might have brawled my way through it instead of using stealth as I was meant to. Problem with authority? That’s me and James both, I suppose.
After getting through the night club mission, you’ll finally be sent out on your first real assignment. It’s the one IOI showed off in the First Light gameplay reveal where James is chafing at getting assigned a chauffeur cover story as the team of soon-to-be 00 agents case the castle-y Carpathian hotel in Slovakia. Be free James, you’re almost a real agent now.
We will have a full 007 First Light review coming your way once we’ve gotten to play through the full thing, but we only got our mitts on it *checks product placement luxury watch* yesterday.