Bond

While it admittedly was plainly obvious to anyone who has seen his face on TV or in film, Danish developer IO Interactive has now made it official: their video game exclusive iteration of the world famous Agent 007 is to be played by Irish actor Patrick Gibson.

Let’s get the obvious facts and figures out of the way first. Gibson is the seventh actor to portray Bond in a visual medium product endorsed by MGM and EON, the stewards of the cinematic franchise. Gibson has a range of impressive credits, but his most high-profile is arguably his most recent, playing a young Dexter Morgan in Dexter: Original Sin. Gibson is the second Irish actor to take on the mantle of Bond, and will go into the record books as the second youngest Bond – he’ll be 30 when he makes his debut in 007: First Light.

“What he brings is energy,” explains Martin Emborg, First Light’s cinematic and narrative director, who naturally played a key role in casting and then directing Gibson.

“A lot of the time the cinematic artists will start with a long lens shot, and he’s always moving. He’s so dynamic. He has this impatience to him. He’s not someone who can sit in a chair and be extremely calm. Which is great, because that’s a key part of his personality.”

Gibson’s casting is central to the single most important decision IO Interactive made, in tandem with MGM, for First Light. This is a young Bond, and though Gibson himself is not that different in age to Connery or Lazenby in their debuts (32 and 29, respectively), he does present a different image of Bond. First Light sees players follow the agent as a true rookie, following a modern version of author Ian Fleming’s origin of the character: orphaned, a challenging career in the Royal Navy, and then recruitment to MI6’s Double-0 program.

Image credit: IO Interactive / MGM

Like the literary versions of the character, in an early look at First Light during a tour of IO Interactive’s Copenhagen development headquarters, Gibson’s Bond appears to be a jumble of delightful contradictions. He is something of a loner, for instance – the late-joining outcast among a crop of young Double-0 candidates tasked with training and working together. But he’s also already partly the Bond we know – slick, instinctive, and socially suave. He’s still witty and funny, obviously, though in a more wry way rather than eyebrow-quirking seventies stuff. Gibson’s performance will be tasked with carrying much of this.

“You could probably find a lot of impatient, energy-filled people,” Emborg admits. “But Patrick balances that out with a gravity and a great kind of… he has a beyond-his-years quality to him.

“I remember we saw, obviously, we saw a lot of tapes, we did a lot of test tapes and stuff like that. The first time I got in a room with him… I’d seen him on video, but being in the room with him I was just like – yeah, he’s the real deal. And that’s not super quantifiable. It’s just a feeling that you get.”

This I believe whole-heartedly. Bond is one of those unique media characters – in British literature probably among only three – who in many ways transcend what is on the page across multiple interpretations, specifically to embrace the nature of the person playing them. James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, The Doctor – you don’t just cast an actor as these characters – you cast these characters as the actor, and the actor’s personality and predilections then become indelibly mixed with the character on the page, who is part blank-slate by design. You only need to see the difference between the Cumberbatch and Downey Jr. versions of Sherlock Holmes to sense this. Or Tennant and Capaldi in the TARDIS. Or the crooked eyebrows and gleeful smirks of Moore to the brutal nihilism of Craig’s Bond.

Gibson now joins that list with his own interpretation that’ll doubtless be very ‘him’ – so it’s no surprise that the casting flew partially on vibes. His Bond differs on age, but there’s more to him than that, of course. He’s chattier than his filmic peers, for a start – but not by too much.

“To some extent, these are smart characters where there’s an economy to the way that they talk,” Emborg notes, which to me suggests writing that will channel Fleming’s economical and spartan prose of the books.

“So, they’re not chatterboxes. But he talks more than Bond usually does. Bond usually has, like, a single line and then punches someone,” Emborg laughs. Gibson will be doing a little more than that, but “there’s still an economy to it. And I just think Patrick is someone who can take the text, internalise it, and figure out how to say the things we’re saying. It was very inspiring.”

Gibson will have faced a similar audition process to recent screen Bonds, in a sense. Bond production studio EON has a set template, where candidates for the role record the iconic casino scene from GoldenEye which ticks a lot of boxes – glib needling of a villain, flirting, ordering a vodka martini, saying ‘Bond, James Bond’, cool detachment. Recently some tapes leaked showing the likes of buff one-of-us nerd Henry Cavill and The Boys’ Anthony Starr performing this scene in 2005, competing with Daniel Craig. The top candidates went on to more specific sides for the project in question – in this case, scenes depicting a younger Bond and testing chemistry with the actors up for parts as reimagined versions of Bond’s key allies.

Image credit: IO Interactive / MGM

Joining Gibson is Priyanga Burford as M, the head of MI6. British TV fans will know Burford from an impressive string of dramas. Burford’s M is intended to somewhat mirror Bond as a younger take on the character who is new to her job. “She enters the role expected to be a temp,” Emborg reveals, “But she turned out to be really efficient and very good at her job. She has this easy authority, but there’s a kind of kindred spirit relationship with Bond being a young man that enters this training program while not necessarily the one everyone expects to succeed.”

MI6’s gadget-toting Quartermaster is played by Alastair Mackenzie, another staple actor in British TV, stage, and film. His closest brush to gaming was a role in a 2013 movie version of Company of Heroes – but many in the nerd sphere will now know him as Perrin, Mon Mothma’s inutile husband in Star Wars’ Andor. Q has been reimagined this time not just as the guy who gives Bond gear, but as an impeccably-dressed key influence on this younger Bond in the matters of style. “Our Q is very sartorial,” Emborg says. “There’s a reason that the Q watch is an Omega and the Q car is an Aston – you know, you have to have standards.”

Moneypenny is yet another familiar face on British TV in Kiera Lester. Moneypenny is a field analyst this time, rather than just M’s secretary. This means she’s the voice you’ll hear most often – delivering pre-mission briefs and always in Bond’s ear mid-assignment, a vital source of information, an ally, and a friend. IO clearly channels its experience of the relationship between Agent 47 and handler Diana Burnwood here. “The friendship and easy chemistry they have is really what transports you through the story,” Emborg adds.

Further, we have confirmation that John Greenway is played by Lennie James, perhaps best known for The Walking Dead and Line of Duty, and to gamers as Destiny’s Lord Shaxx. Greenway is a vital new character, the last remaining Double-0 agent in MI6 after the program was shut down a decade or so before the events of First Light. He’s now tasked with rebooting the section with young recruits. “He’s the stern mentor who will put Bond through his paces,” reveals Emborg. “But he’s a great spy in a traditional sense. There’s more of a Cold War air about him.”

Finally, at least for now, is the reveal of Ms. Roth, aka ‘Isola’ – the female lead. Noémie Nakai is bringing this French intelligence agent to life – and she has a string of TV and film credits to her name, both in French and English productions. Many will know her from a turn in Tokyo Vice – and some gamers might recognize her voice from Grid Legends, where she was an announcer.

Image credit: IO Interactive / MGM

The idea, various developers explain, is that these key characters around Bond will help form who he is – sculpting this young Royal Navy lad into the suave, sophisticated, and unstoppable agent we know him as. The most obvious example is Q, of course – this is a man who wears a cravat under his labcoat, and he’s going to smarten up this lad by hook or by crook. But each of the core cast of the game will have a role to play in helping to shape Gibson’s Bond, including those above plus a mysterious mask-wearing villain who IO hasn’t yet confirmed the actor of. That villain’s mask, in particular, sure feels like it’s hiding some sort of shocking casting secret.

The need for a new Bond and a new world for IO to play in was obvious. Daniel Craig’s era was hurtling towards its close as IO began work on this game, for a start. But also, being free of whatever the film franchise decides to do is a creative liberation. IO wants to be true to Bond, but also leave its fingerprints on the franchise. Plus, there is a market opportunity too.

“Part of the challenge is like, does a 17, 19, 21-year-old… do they know Bond?” asks IO co-owner and First Light director Hakan Abrak. “They’ve heard about it, right. But do they have that same experience – that I saw that with my dad, I grew up with this experience? Maybe not to the same degree, right?”

It’s a fair point. When I was growing up, there was a Bond film every two to three years. The character was everywhere in my formative years. With less frequent films, today’s young likely know the character less well. So the concept with this new version is a version of Bond for those people, even if some existing fans are left wrinkling their nose in distaste at the choice. Abrak recalls Daniel Craig’s casting, where fans raised petitions and designed websites screaming that he was a terrible choice.

“That’s the beauty of it. It’s an IP that invites discussion, that invites sharing your story or what you like,” Abrak says. Gibson is a new Bond for a new generation, though IOI of course hopes that existing fans also come along for the ride. “Ultimately, we hope this is a way for a new audience to get acquainted with this fantasy. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

As in any good Bond story, the agent is the sun around which everything else orbits. In a video game there’s more than just an actor to worry about – animation, sound design, even how the blend of motion capture and hand animation catches the character’s unique ambulation. First Light is very different to IO’s work on Hitman in many ways, but one key way is in how the protagonist moves – where 47 is stiff and deliberate, 007 flows like a surging river. Only part of that is from Gibson, of course – but the team at IO seems convinced they’ve nailed finding their man.

“It’s impossible to overstate what he brings,” says Emborg. “What they do – when you have Lenny James and Patty together on stage… it’s that energy. You go, wow. Why do I have goosebumps right now? They’re not even saying anything, but they’re doing something.”

I consider myself a pretty discerning Bond fan. It wasn’t until I actually saw Casino Royale that Craig won me over, even (though I was never enough of a moron to sign a petition on sight alone). But I can say that even having just seen a few glimpses of him, this new 007 has me largely convinced. By going younger, shifting away from the known parameters of the character, IO has created space within which to operate – and thrillingly, Gibson seems to be the right man to fill in those gaps.

Disclaimer: IO Interactive provided Eurogamer travel, accommodation, and sustenance for a one-day visit to their studio HQ in Copenhagen.

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