IO Interactive tweaked its plans during development because the other 00 agents originally had larger roles in the story.
One element that stood out as particularly unusual when we played 007: First Light was the story arc involving Bond’s fellow 00 trainees, Cressida Bright and Lennox Monroe. IO Interactive put a tremendous amount of work into developing these characters, successfully convincing us of the inherently bizarre concept that James Bond has roommates. However, just as we were starting to warm up to them, they disappeared from the story. After MI6 failed to take out the Slovakian rebel 009, Bond primarily teamed up with his mentor, Greenway.
All of this was well portrayed, but the pacing of the story still felt off during gameplay. It turns out there may be a reason for this. IO Interactive originally planned for First Light to focus less directly on Bond, while his friends would have played a much larger role in the story. In an interview with Eurogamer, First Light’s lead writer, Michael Vogt, explained how the game’s first act came together. Logically, it makes sense. You wouldn’t send a newly trained agent out into the field alone until you were sure they could handle the situation, which, given Bond’s tendency to cut corners, would likely take a while. However, IO Interactive ultimately rejected the ensemble concept to give Bond’s character development more momentum.
“During the training sequence, we make a false promise. We’re basically saying, ‘This is going to be an ensemble piece with all the 00s working together, as they do in Slovakia.’ Then, we pull the rug out from under you when most of them die. Serendipitously, Bond is the last man standing. He could have died in the explosion, but he didn’t, so he emerges as the top agent. In my very first pitch, however, I think we were toying with the idea of making it an ensemble piece with the different agents working together. The story beats are that it starts out as all fun and games for him—he’s a young kid on an adventure, globetrotting and playing secret agent—but after the explosion, he wakes up to the harsh reality. When M says that the life expectancy of a 00 agent is very short, Bond realizes it. He understands, and he matures from that and the guilt, maybe survivor’s guilt, of being the one who made it,” Vogt said.
Vogt doesn’t remember exactly when this change took place, but it explains why Cressida and Monroe seem like companions who accompany Bond throughout the entire game. At least during part of the game’s development, that was the plan.
