James Bond game 007 First Light is getting free DLC today in an Extended Operations update. This adds much-asked-for features to the game – such as New Game Plus, a new harder difficulty mode, a photo mode – as well as more TacSim mission challenges and a couple of game adjustments
Those game adjustments are improved weapon handling “fidelity”, a press release says, to give more precision to Bond’s movement and weapon behaviour. The other adjustment is enemies are now able to throw you off ledges, rather than this being a move only you can do.
New Game Plus is unlocked once you beat the campaign on any difficulty, and once you unlock it, you’ll also unlock the game’s new 00 difficulty, which is described as “considerably harder”.
A trailer for the Extended Operations DLC release.Watch on YouTube
“The 00 difficulty mode sharpens combat, stealth, and social encounters alike: enemies react faster to bodies and disturbances, certain guard archetypes are swapped for tougher variants, gadget use is restricted within a guard’s line of sight, and combat itself becomes far less forgiving, with two-hit kills, tighter parry and side-step timing, and reduced agency gained in a fight,” the press release says.
Meanwhile, the TacSim missions bring the Aston Martin Valhalla back, and challenge you to tear across the Slovakian mountainside in it, at varying times of day, as you try to beat certain timed challenges. You can mount rocket-launchers on the car to help, it seems.
There’s also another TacSim challenge that takes Bond back to the luxury Pearl resort in Vietnam. There he gets a new mission to retrieve classified documents from a safe before escaping to a rooftop, apparently the whole villa is in play in this mission, and the villa’s interior has been redesigned to allow more opportunities for stealth.
A few supplied screenshots of that very fancy car.
Photo mode, finally, lets you stop the action for a piccy whenever you like – mid-battle if desired – and alter character poses as well as adjust a host of other variables such as lighting, lens adjustments, processing filters and so on.
“This DLC is brought to you as a thank you to all the players who’ve been with us since the game’s release,” said game director Dominic Vega (this title appears to be a new development – Vega was a mission director before now) in a trailer accompanying the announcement. “So start the game and go earn the number.”
007 First Light was released in May and quickly earned success as one of the best James Bond games in years. “007 First Light is less cerebral and replayable than IO’s World of Assassination trilogy, but makes up for it with excellent fistfights and oodles of charm,” said Rick Lane in Eurogamer’s 007 First Light review.
Since then, the game has sold well, with 007 First Light passing 4m sales in three months, suggesting a sequel may well be in IO Interactive’s agenda. However, the studio suffered a significant setback around the same time 007 First Light was released, as Xbox pulled out of a publishing deal for Project Fantasy, an online role-playing game it still appears to be making.