SirMadsen

Swedish MovieZine has spoken to the developers behind the "Hitman" series and the upcoming Bond game "007 First Light", about what we can expect from their take on the iconic spy. “007 First Light” is a new Bond game by IO Interactive, known for its “Hitman” series. The game is in development for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2 – and will be released sometime in 2026. Here we meet a young and inexperienced James Bond who is recruited by MI6 and gets to carry out his first missions. MovieZine has spoken to Jonathan Lacaille, who is the franchise director for the game at IO Interactive. 1. The developers really know the brandWhat are the most important elements that a Bond story needs? – When we started working on the game, we obviously looked at what makes a good Bond story. There are some elements that are found in all the films, which we took inspiration from to cook up the game’s recipe. – Exoticism, vehicles and gadgets are some things that always appear in a spy story. Another element is interesting and preferably double-sided characters. Villains and henchmen are also very important. I don't think there's a Bond film without them. – Then of course James Bond is at the center. We've seen different vintages, but I would say that the common thread through all Bond products is that they have always felt modern. Sean Connery was cutting edge for his time when the first film premiered both in terms of culturally, what products he used for the story and the themes they created. It was modern for his time, just like Daniel Craig was for our and now also Bond in the game. So the game takes place in the present? – Yes, or in the very near future, but I can't say an exact year. That's because it feels relevant within the time period we're releasing the game. 2. IO Interactive has already made fantastic spy games with the "Hitman" seriesWhen the game "Hitman 3" by IO Interactive was released in 2021, I wrote in my review that it "makes me feel like James Bond". I'm not alone in that opinion, says Jonathan Lacaille, who says the team has leveraged its strengths from that series during the development of "007 First Light." "We're leaning on what the studio does really well and have mastered the agent genre in the work on "Hitman" for a long time. It would be foolish not to lean on what we do best," he says. James Bond and “Hitman” are very different series, however. They have their similarities, but they are different characters who work in different ways. IO Interactive therefore needed to build some new muscles. – The action sequences and shooting are something we needed to get much better at. In the “Hitman” games, it usually means that you have failed when the guns come out. Then you have been discovered, it's over. In a Bond game, it is one of the tools you can choose to move on. 3. “007 First Light” offers great varietyOther new features are driving, which IO Interactive has never included in its previous games, but also gadgets. – We want the player to feel as smart as Bond. By that I mean that he sometimes ends up in a situation where the odds are against him. We want the player to identify different options – whether it is to take the main entrance and shoot wildly or sneak in through the back door. Something else that is quite unique to Bond is using his charm to get past obstacles. There is a rumor that actor Patrick Gibson will play Bond in “007 First Light”. He has played in “The Tudors”, “Shadow and Bone”, “Tolkien” and recently played the role of a young Dexter Morgan in “Dexter: Original Sin”. What can you say about that? – People are always speculating who will play Bond. Right now we want to focus on showing the game and presenting what it is about. We really want people to care about the game. Regarding the cast, I can only say that it is speculation, but we will confirm who will be involved later this summer. 4. A different James Bond we have never seen beforeHow much freedom have you had in developing this game? Is it a challenge to work with a franchise that does not belong to you? – We obviously have to respect the brand. There are guides and guidelines about what Bond is and is not, but they are not particularly restrictive. It is more of a tool that you can use and build on. Because we chose to do an origin story, everything has to be invented, so that way we have a lot of creative freedom. It's also a different medium. It's a game and not a movie, so that also gives a different kind of freedom. In “007 First Light,” James Bond is 26 years old and an inexperienced spy. He’s not based on any previous interpretation of the character, but a completely new one we’ve never seen in the movies before. – We based a lot of it on how he looks in the books by Ian Fleming. Someone at MGM mentioned that he has a scar on his face at some point, so we thought it would be fun to go with that because he’s never been portrayed that way before. They’ve seen such a huge library to dig into and get inspiration from to build this new story. What are your personal favorite Bond movies? – It’s changed over time. When I was little, Pierce Brosnan was great, but the movies with Daniel Craig were amazing because they really built on the character. He develops through the movies. I felt like I could watch them as a TV series. If I had to choose, I’d have a hard time choosing between Sean Connery and Daniel Craig. 5. The developers hope it will be as loved as “Goldeneye 007”What is your relationship with the game “Goldeneye 007” from 1997 for Nintendo 64, which is considered by many to be the best Bond game? – It’s probably the only one I’ve actually played. It was a fantastic game, there’s no denying that. It’s always the game that people refer to when talking about Bond games. I hope our game will get similar status. They’re two very different gaming experiences, but I think we have a very well-made game in the works that people will like for other reasons than “Goldeneye 007”. “007 First Light” will be released sometime in 2026. We’ll find out more about the game during the summer. Trailer

Adi Shankar is the producer who took “Castlevania” and “Devil May Cry” from games to animated TV series on Netflix. Now he has his sights set on a new franchise to adapt: “Duke Nukem”. In an interview with Esquire he says the following: – I have video games in the works. Obviously more “Devil May Cry”. I get offered various franchises from companies that want to work with me. I bought the rights to “Duke Nukem”. Not the game rights, but I bought it from Gearbox. He goes on to say that he doesn’t plan on taking orders from anyone when he adapts “Duke Nukem”: – It’s a middle finger to everyone. When “Duke Nukem” became big, a group of people tried to make it a brand, when all it is is a middle finger. “Duke Nukem” can’t be made by one company, because the moment a company makes “Duke Nukem” it’s no longer “Duke Nukem”. I'm not going to let anyone tell me what to do with it. Duke Nukem "Duke Nukem" is a series of action games that follows the character Duke Nukem in battle against various enemies. The original game, released in 1991, was a side-scrolling game for computers, but in recent years the series has evolved into full-fledged shooter games. That said, "Duke Nukem" hasn't released a new game since 2011, so one can wonder how relevant it is today. This is not the first time "Duke Nukem" has been in the news for an adaptation. In 2019, for example, there was talk of John Cena playing the lead role in a film, but so far it hasn't happened. Whether Adi Shankar's (probably animated) adaptation will see the light of day remains to be seen.

The controversial online game “Dark and Darker” will be removed from all players’ libraries on the Epic Games Store on November 1. In an email to players, Epic Games writes that the removal is due to a court order in South Korea, between the gaming company Nexon and “Dark and Darker” publisher Ironmace. Earlier in February 2025, a court in Seoul ruled that Ironmace had violated trade secrets by leaking internal information. Players can already no longer purchase “Dark and Darker’s” own currency, Redstone Shards, or upgrade to Legendary Status. Epic Games writes that anyone who purchased Legendary Status in the game will get their money back. However, no money will be refunded for Redstone Shards. Despite all its legal problems, “Dark and Darker” became a huge success in 2024. At the time of writing, it is still available to download via the gaming platform Steam.

A group of Chinese film studios are now planning to make AI remakes of over 100 classic martial arts films, Variety reports. According to China Film Foundation chairman Zhang Qilin, these films are “cinematic calling cards” that show China’s spirit and vitality to the world. AI will be used to improve the productions’ picture and sound quality, while the studios promise to preserve the authenticity of the originals. Among the titles are works by legends such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li – including “Fist of Fury,” “The Big Boss,” “Once Upon a Time in China,” and “Drunken Master.” When the AI versions will be released is still unclear.

DUNE: Awakening Rise from survival to greatness and challenge the power of an Imperium in Dune: Awakening, a multiplayer survival game on a massive scale. Survive the sandworm, craft your ornithopter, build a fortress, and ascend to power on an open world Arrakis shared with hundreds of other players. TLDRIt's a chore and a grind fest. REVIEWThe game-play is solid and the building mechanics are top tier. That's about it. Get ready for a lot of running and drinking. Yes, the water system is really bad in my opinion. The rate at which water drains is ridiculous and you end up always interrupting whatever you are doing to go get water in your base or hunting NPC's to get their blood. It's a choir rather than a fundamental mechanic. Also, hunger is apparently not a thing on Arrakis... There is also this weird mechanic with shielded doors where you have to find a random key just laying around in order to be able to go through the shield. It felt very misplaced and like a lazy way to limit players from entering certain areas (forced exploration). Either make it feel worth it or just skip the mechanic overall. The whole game feels like a big chore. You need hundreds of tools to farm hundreds of materials to build hundred components for one thing (a little exaggerated but you get it). It feels too complicated and it takes away from the game-play and survival aspect when you constantly have to go out farming materials just to keep the base alive. Speaking of base, I'm running one of each simple machines and I need FOUR GENERATORS! Again, I have to constantly run out and farm fuel cells. Why in the frakkin seven hells is there no such thing as a sun collector in the desert? There's obviously a wind turbine and RAIN collector in the desert where there's no rain or winds! There are many more minor things like this that just don't feel thought through, feels lazy and out of place, over-complicated and a chore rather than a task. I'm not gonna go into the poor mission (journey) system and how you have to hunt down class trainers, forced into PvP zones even though devs stated that PvP is optional etc. Because it's bad. Again, a frakkin chore. They claim it's a MMO yet there is no such thing as team work other than being a FOUR MAN PARTY(!). There is no mission sharing, no shareable map markers, nothing really aimed towards group play unless, again, you engage in PvP... Poor server structure and server system, repetitive missions and a lot of grinding. I would honestly wait for a sale and I am once again reminded why buying games early instead of waiting for reviews and game-play videos is a mistake. I'm pretty much done, spending hours and hours grinding materials just to have my base up and running and then not having time to actually play the game is not what I consider fun. Final Score: 2/5

Tiny Tina and Limbo are the free games on Epic Store for another day. You get some fun hours out of these two and save a pretty penny on Tina. Go grab'em now before they disappear.

A huge database of Steam user info is reportedly up for sale on the dark web, with one of Valve's service providers the potential source. Read the entire article here: https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam/data-breach-valve-service-provider

A huge database of Steam user info is reportedly up for sale on the dark web, with one of Valve's service providers the potential source. Read the entire article here: https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam/data-breach-valve-service-provider

The updated user agreement allows them to make a Nintendo device "permanently unusable". Next month, it is time for Switch 2 - Nintendo's next console, which is essentially a more powerful variant of their latest success. Prior to this, they have updated their user agreement and privacy policy, and one of the new points may probably be considered worth raising an eyebrow over. It is in the license section that Nintendo points out that one must not in any way circumvent, modify, decrypt, destroy or mix with Nintendo Account Services, and that Nintendo reserves the right to, among other things: "permanently make Nintendo Account Services and/or applicable. In other words, they "brick" a Nintendo console if they believe that the user has, for example, tinkered with the account service to be able to pirate or engage in anything else that Nintendo does not like. It is not uncommon that it is not possible to play with devices that have been tampered with, but making a console completely unusable is clearly a step further. It is unclear to what extent it will actually be used or whether it is even applicable to legislation in different parts of the world.

A fascinating and somewhat scary aspect of artificial intelligence is that nobody completely understands how it works. Perhaps for the first time in human history, we have invented technology we do not fully understand. Many people understand the basics; Machine learning, transformer model, calibration and training, but not why chat bots give the answers they give or why the models show special behaviors. A crucial difference between artificial intelligence and traditional programs is that AI gets its own abilities that appear, like knowledge of mathematics and programming. Common programs have specifically written functions, while AI learns from statistical patterns in data. Many have pointed out precisely the incomprehensibility of AI, including AI experts and Open AI CEO Sam Altman, who compared the unpredictability of artificial intelligence with the human brain. Most recently, Anthropic Manager Dario Amodei has pointed out that they do not understand their own creations, in a post on their blog. AI is still moving forward fast and it will be exciting (scary?) To see where we end up in five to ten years.