IO Interactive has been telling the story of Agent 47 for 25 years now, but soon the Hitman studio is about to embark on a new journey, with a character steeped in even more history. 007: First Light looks to take a new approach to James Bond by digging into his early life as an agent, while meeting some unique and colorful characters along the way.
At The Game Awards, the game’s first villain–the pirate king Bawma–was revealed, along with confirmation that actor and musician Lenny Kravitz will assume the role. Earlier in the year, IO confirmed that one of Bond’s trusted associates, Dr. Selina Tan, will be portrayed by English actress Gemma Chan.
GameSpot sat down with 007: First Light narrative director Martin Emborg to talk about the star power fueling his game, the potential pitfalls of revealing too much info too soon, and a little bit more about where Bond will run into Bawma during this adventure.
Becoming Bawma
While the character of Bawma was being worked on before Lenny Kravitz officially signed on to the project, Emborg tells us that the star was a big part of creating the character who appears in the trailer shown during The Game Awards.
“We knew the character of Bawma was a larger-than-life, colorful character,” Emborg said, “So, when Lenny came on board, he helped shape the character in a big way. He’s had a major impact on Bawma; The cool outfit, the character traits, the backstory, all of these things we went back and forth and crafted this character together. We designed the character in cooperation with him.”
So who is Bawma, and what do we know about Aleph in Mauritania, the place where Bond will encounter him? Emborg says that Aleph is a perilous place for a young secret agent to try to infiltrate, and Bawma oversees it with an iron fist.
“It is a kingdom, and Bawma is its pirate king,” Emborg says. “Aleph is one of the most dangerous places on Earth. Somewhere where, if you don’t keep your wits about you, you probably won’t make it out. When you first see it, you think it’s going to be a high adventure, but the closer you get, you realize how dodgy it actually is. Then, once you enter it, you think, ‘I should probably not be here.’ It’s really one of my favorite locations in the game.”
When we asked him what will bring Bond to Aleph in the first place, Emborg didn’t want to give too much away. “I think we have an amazing story lined up, and in my dream world, everyone would see the teaser trailer, immediately buy the game, and go in cold,” he said. “I love teasing things, but I think the more context we provide in trailers, the less ‘cold’ players will be going in, so I prefer to keep things fresh.”
He did, however, confirm one key thing: Bawma is a villain within 007: First Light, not the villain. There are still more bad guys to come.
Cards close to the chest
While that “dream world” of players going in cold sounds nice, Emborg is well aware that his team needs to get the word out about its game and the cool things within. Still, while he understands that hype is important, he is also very mindful not to give too much away.”I’m fully aware that when doing big entertainment like this, you need to show people what you’ve got and what they’re in for,” Emborg said. “I think this trailer is a great way to show something like Lenny off, but how deep do we go?”
“I’ve absolutely come to terms with the fact that you need to show some of these great things off,” he continued. “In an ideal world, people would go in cold and have an amazing experience. People will still have an amazing experience with Bond either way, but I don’t want to supply you with too much context.”
That being said, the team’s excitement as time marches closer to launch is palpable, and Emborg is especially eager for players to play through the story he and his team have created. “Having worked on something for this long, it’s exciting to finally get here, and I’m really just looking forward to getting this in people’s hands,” Emborg said. “We’re teasing little elements of the story, we’re showing some of the places you’re going and the people you’re meeting, but the whole game is a great adventure.”
In Emborg’s mind, there’s one piece of the puzzle that stands above the rest in terms of importance: the characters. “I think when you get the full picture, you go on a thrill ride that is, importantly, character driven,” he says. “When you’re making something that is Bond, the character is essential. Sure, you’ll have the usual village of supporters and the globe-trotting adventure, but I’m really looking forward to people getting time with our version of James Bond, because he is a lot of fun.”
The doctor is in
Among the key characters who drive a Bond adventure are his supporting team like Q and M, who give him not only his missions, but also his equipment for the job. Earlier this year, IO revealed one of those supporters in Dr. Selina Tan, played by Gemma Chan, who Emborg says made the character her own right from the start.
“We’d been talking to Gemma, and I had a character bio and an idea in my head of how I wanted Dr. Tan to be,” Emborg said. “She came in and had a take where, afterward, I threw everything I’d prepared out, because she just nailed the character in a way I hadn’t even thought of. She gave Selina Tan a kind of charm and quirkiness I hadn’t anticipated, which was a joy.”
For Emborg, Chan’s unique approach, and the way it changed the character completely, is the mark of an actor at the top of their game. “That’s what having great actors is like,” Emborg said. “They do their homework and find an angle on the character that, in the best cases, you don’t expect. The actor does a take and you think, ‘Wow, I didn’t see that coming.'”
Character-changing moments like Gemma Chan’s take, according to Emborg, are a highlight of the entire narrative experience. “I love [moments like that],” Emborg said. “One of my favorite parts of working with actors is when you’ve prepared all this material, you’ve lived with these characters for a long time, and then the actor arrives in the booth and you have that ‘eureka’ moment; it doesn’t always happen, but when it does, it makes you realize why that actor is such a heavy hitter.”
007: First Light is set to launch for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC on March 27, 2026.