Stardew Valley creator Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone has a cameo role in Team Cherry’s new mega hit indie game, Hollow Knight: Silksong.

The sequel to Team Cherry’s original bleak and beloved metroidvania game finally launched across PC and consoles earlier today, bringing an end to more than six painful years of anticipation. As what is sure to be millions of fans swarm to see if the wait was worth it, The Verge has pointed out that the Hollow Knight: Silksong credits tease a special cameo from one of the most notable indie developers of the last decade.

Those who navigate to the Hollow Knight sequel’s credits – which can be found in the “extras” option on the main menu – will notice that Barone is featured among the shortlist of names included under “Additional Character Voices.” It means that, if you know where to look, you’ll be able to hear the mastermind behind farming sim sensation Stardew Valley among those lending their voice talents to the land of Pharloom and all of its insect inhabitants.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit unclear how exactly Barone is featured in Hollow Knight: Silksong. ConcernedApe’s head of operations and business development, Cole Medeiros, confirmed with The Verge that, while the Stardew Valley creator does indeed play a role in the Hollow Knight follow-up, they aren’t ready to reveal who he plays. Medeiros added that Barone would “rather not say which character(s) so as not to spoil any surprises for anyone.”

Although hundreds of thousands of players have already logged in to Steam to play Hollow Knight: Silksong on a Thursday morning, it might take some time to find how Barone is featured. Team Cherry made the metroidvania sequel available for players today, September 4, 2025, for $19.99 for PC, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S, and it immediately helped cause digital storefronts like Steam and the Nintendo eShop to crash. As fans continue to pour in, they’ll be met with a game that appears to be substantially bigger than the already quite large original Hollow Knight.

As fans continue to turn over every bug boss and creepy enemy in search of Barone, you can see how players can take advantage of enhanced features in the Switch 2 version of Hollow Knight: Silksong. You can also see why the announcement of Hollow Knight: Silksong’s release date had a few other developers ready to change their own schedules.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Civilization VII developer Firaxis has laid off an unknown number of individuals today, despite the insistance of Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick that the game's sales are consistent with expectations.

Today, a number of Firaxis employees announced across social media that they had been let go, including members of production, narrative, and art. Civilization VII publisher 2K confirmed the layoffs to Game Developer, saying the studio was restructuring and optimizing its development process for "adaptability, collaboration, and creativity." The company did not confirm the number of individuals impacted.

Firaxis released Civilization VII earlier this year, and the game has since received a mixed reception on Steam amid player complaints about the game's user interface, lack of map variety, and that it was missing expected features. Since then, Firaxis has released a number of updates to the game to improve it in these areas.

In the meantime, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of 2K parent Take-Two, has said that while Civilization VII did get off to a "slow start", the company's internal projections for the "lifetime value" of the game still match initial expectations.

“I think the key thing is that Civ has always been a slow burn. It's always been a title that had — I'm not really a big believer in the long tail theory of the entertainment business — but Civ is an example of that theory. And right now our projections for the lifetime value of the title are very consistent with our initial expectations for the title.

“So while we were off to a slow start and while we have had to make changes — and there are more changes coming — I feel like consumer uptake is better and better and we feel really good about the title. I think over time it's going to take its place in its civilization pantheon in a very successful, credible way.”

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Hollow Knight: Silksong is already a huge hit on Steam despite causing Valve’s storefront to crash, posting massive concurrent player numbers.

At the time of this article’s publication, and as those storefront problems ease, Silksong was on a huge 453,993 concurrent players on Steam, making it the third most-played game on Valve’s platform behind only Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2.

This number looks set to rise, too, as more people download the game ahead of its first weekend on sale. The question now is, just how big will it be? It’s already the 29th most-played game on Steam of all-time, with the likes of Helldivers 2 in its sights.

Silksong is one of the most anticipated games of 2025. Over six years after its initial announcement and as the most wishlisted game on Steam, Silksong finally launched today, September 4, across PC, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and S priced $19.99 and weighing in at 7.62GB.

Of course, Silksong’s true player count will be much bigger across all platforms. Neither Sony, Nintendo nor Microsoft make player numbers public, but Silksong crashed those storefronts, too, so it will be massive everywhere. And let’s remember Silksong is a day-one Game Pass title. Yep, this one’s enormous, perhaps even the biggest indie game launch of all time.

Little was known about Silksong ahead of launch, so players are only now discovering its secrets. One of the first revelations is the achievements list (Silksong has 52 Achievements and 53 Trophies to unlock and discover).

Be sure to check out IGN's Silksong coverage, which includes the story of the superfan behind the YouTube Channel Daily Silksong News, who can finally rest after an incredible 1,693 days of videos.

Be sure to stay up-to-date with all the latest from IGN by clicking here and setting IGN as a preferred source in Google.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

The old cliche is that war never changes, but what happens when the hellish actions of war manifest as monsters that trap people in time loops of their worst deeds? Well, even then it turns out the cruelty of mankind itself are still worse than any supernatural destruction, and Hell is Us uses its fantastical near-future setting to take a dark, authentic look at the horrors of war. While the actual act of fighting your way through the monsters of this devastated nation isn’t doing much that’s new to the action-adventure genre, Hell is Us kept me entertained throughout my 38-hour adventure nonetheless. Its combat is simple but satisfying and its world is full of puzzles that push you to really pay attention, which makes for a campaign filled with intrigue, grief, and sometimes a little frustration.

Hell is Us is equal parts exploration, combat, and puzzle solving. It’s a familiar formula if you’ve played games like God of War or Resident Evil before, but roaming the fictional country of Hadea as Remi, an exile smuggled out of the country as a child, proved to be a different kind of challenge. You're told upfront that there is no map, waypoint system, or indication of where to go next. I had to retrain my brain in the early hours of Hell is Us as I adapted to how it does things, like I was riding a bike without training wheels for the first time. While frustrating at first, that annoyance seemed to fade away around the midpoint of Act One, and I could feel myself more quickly pinpointing the necessary clues I needed to progress.

What starts as a quest for answers about Remi’s missing family, his whole reason for returning to Hadea, quickly becomes a series of puzzles and scavenger hunts that reveal a bigger picture. With both that mystery and a large number of items to collect, the lack of a traditional map or waypoint system meant I found it almost mandatory to keep physical notes on what I had seen. That was especially true as I assembled a lengthy list of puzzles and NPCs that required specific items I had yet to find, with some items that wouldn't even become available until later portions of the story.

At first, I was caught off guard by how front and center the puzzle component is in Hell is Us – not because I disliked that, but because it just wasn't what I expected going in. There are plenty of puzzles to solve with all the usual suspects represented: aligning symbols to open doors, delivering specific items to NPCs, deciphering safe codes, finding color-coded keys, stepping on pressure plates, and more. While I've only solved about three-quarters of them so far, most solutions have ranged from obvious to mild head scratchers – this is nice place for them to land because there are a lot of things to keep track of on your own at once, but I never got stuck in one place for too long (and the rewards typically were worth the effort).

The only mildly frustrating part of some puzzles is that you don't always know upfront if you have everything you need to solve them, or if certain key pieces are even available yet, as many items don't show up until you progress further. That would usually be such a minor inconvenience that it wouldn't even be worth mentioning; however, because Hell is Us takes pride in not automatically tracking the specifics of stuff like quests and puzzles, if you don't keep detailed notes or if you happen to take a few days off from playing, it can lead to running around in circles searching for an unknowable solution.

Speaking of running in circles, while the first act is initially pretty straightforward, I found myself getting a bit lost after a few hours. Without a map, it was tough to figure out where I had and hadn't been. You can't progress to new locations without uncovering specific clues or NPCs that give you information about those zones, so I began to lose steam towards the midpoint of Act One. However, this pain point completely went away in the following two acts thanks to the combination of more characters that reliably offer information about the quest and my own acclimation to how I was meant to decipher the bread crumbs of the story.

As Remi, you are a firsthand witness to Hell is Us’ themes of hate, violence, brutality, and humanity being its own worst enemy. They are seen in every NPC conversation, location, and piece of lore you find on the search for Remi's family. You would think that the worst of what you have to face are the Hollowed monsters plaguing the streets and countrysides of Hadea, but if history has told us anything time and time again, our worst enemies are always ourselves. It wasn't those haunting enemies that stuck with me past the credits, but the imagery of the world, the harrowing events described by its survivors, and the vitriol characters often had for one another.

It’s almost impossible not to draw parallels between the horrors portrayed throughout Remi's journey and current events happening in the real world. Hadea's towns are ravaged by war, filled with imagery of civilian executions and propaganda as two fictional races of people, the Palomians and Sabinians, constantly blame the other for everything wrong in the world. Add in the rise of those terrifying new Hollow creatures, which are impervious to traditional weapons, and it culminates in a believable alternate history with horrors rooted in our own.

Hell is Us wears its grim view of a collapsed civilization and its struggling population on its sleeve. Every major NPC can be asked about Hadea, the war, peacekeepers, the Hollow creatures, and both the Palomians and Sabinians. And unlike the obscure puzzles and riddles throughout the world, the characters speak plainly about their feelings on each topic – be that a young girl who wishes everyone on the other side would die or a member of the military who has no issues whatsoever with collateral damage. While these conversations won't progress any storylines or assist in sidequests, they all help to paint an effective picture of the current state of the world and how it came to be.

These conversations were enlightening, but they were also tough to swallow in today's world, especially when myself and many others use video games as a means of escapism. There were times when it often felt like too much, but the thought of ignoring these kinds of experiences felt cynical and disrespectful to those enduring similar tragedies daily. Even minor NPCs struck a chord as I encountered small settlements of survivors, many of whom have lost families, limbs, and more. Hell is Us never strays away from showing the cost of war, and it’s better for it.

These tragedies aren't just there for show, either, as they also feed into the important time loop mechanic. Time loops appear as concentrated spheres of negative energy derived from truly heinous actions such as public executions, murders, and other tragic events, and they can only be cleared by removing an area of its time loop guardians. Though most are optional, clearing them provides rewards like key items for certain puzzles or NPCs and various weapon upgrades, and also stops enemies from respawning in that vicinity, which was enough incentive for me to tackle them when convenient. The guardians appear as regular Hollow enemies at a glance, but are slightly tougher fights due to their higher health and attack power – although, more often than not they were still so easy I would only realize I had just faced a guardian after the fact, so they didn’t stand out as meaningful or memorable fights to match the somber moments around them.

Combat not quite scratching the itch I hoped it would was a consistent theme throughout most of Hell is Us. It has all the staples you'd expect in an action-adventure game: attack combos, charge attacks, parries, dodges, and special abilities that improve both your weapons and a drone that fights alongside you. But while it has the ingredients of a great combat system, they never come together to make something more impressive than the sum of those parts. That isn't to say combat is bad in any way, because is can still be quite fun – but it never really wowed me, either. Even the special executions for certain enemies, which shift the camera perspective in an attempt to punch up the stylishness of those moves, didn't amaze me despite being functionally useful.

Early on, Remi learns that standard weapons are useless against the Hollow enemies and quickly builds up an arsenal of limbic weapons with special properties – swords, twin axes, polearms, and more, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. As you explore and solve various puzzles or help the citizens of Hadea, you unlock glyphs that can be equipped to weapons to augment them with properties such as Rage, Ecstasy, Terror, and Grief. Upgrading weapons with different properties will not only change their appearance, but also change which abilities they can equip. I was a big fan of Rage as it supercharged my aggressive playstyle, allowing me to stagger enemies and giving me some range options. Meanwhile, Terror ended up being the augment for my second weapon as it allowed me to drain enemies of their health at a safe distance.

Hell is Us also takes a different approach to healing while in combat: dealing damage refills your health, but only if you cash in after landing an attack or combo without taking damage. This was a double-edged sword for me, as it’s an interestingly unique system, but one that meant I would often not worry about how much damage I was taking because I knew that landing one or two combos would be enough to heal me back up in a pinch. It allowed me to be more aggressive in the hopes of outhealing any damage I took, but occasionally my bravado would get the best of me and lead to either death or finishing a fight with critical health. My strategy had to change as I reached the later acts, with specific enemies that could chain attacks to interrupt or stagger me, preventing me from retaliating or causing me to get overwhelmed by a group.

That said, Hell is Us lacks enemy variety overall, with only five types of visually distinct Hollow enemies. That is a letdown, because I really liked their designs – which range from a humanoid with an eerie black void of black in place of its face and chest, to a mage with large ribbed wings that creates damaging zones on the ground – and was hoping to see the team behind them flex their creative muscles even more. It is similarly lacking in the boss department, with only two traditional bosses across the three acts. It does have a few gauntlets of enemies to fight through that act as pseudo bosses for certain areas, but they just don't have the same impact after delving through multiple floors of a dungeon.

Thankfully, the roster is padded out with 12 Haze-type enemies in addition to the Hollows. These don't have the same cool, distinct designs, instead looking like more generic shapes or creatures made of smaller colorful blocks. But what they lack in visual flair, they make up for in challenge, as these enemies were often the ones to either overwhelm me or give me a better fight. Early on, Hollow enemies become entwined with each other and various Haze enemies, preventing them from losing health until the attached Hazes have been subjugated. This creates a small dance of taking down the Haze and then attempting to defeat the Hollow before that Haze could respawn, adding a nice layer of complexity to the otherwise simple combat.

For those looking to add some games to their PC library as the chilly fall weather starts to roll in, September's Humble Choice lineup has officially been announced. This includes a wide variety of games, including WWE 2K25, Destiny 2: Legacy Collection, The Plucky Squire, and five others you can stock up on for just $14.99 if you sign up for a Humble Choice membership. On top of those games, this month also comes with one month of IGN Plus for free, which allows you to turn off ads across the site, get free games, and more.

Humble Choice – September 2025

Magic: The Gathering is in a strange spot right now. With so many ‘Universes Beyond’ products, plus Secret Lairs for third-party IP mounting up, it’s becoming the Super Smash Bros. of card games, and that’s leading to some fun synergies.

As spotted by Wargamer, one Tyranid card from the Warhammer 40k Commander Decks has climbed some serious value in recent weeks thanks to a surprise team-up with, uh, Sonic the Hedgehog.

Winged Hive Tyrant, from the 40K Commander deck Tyranid Swarm, is a 4/4 with flying and haste, as well as text for ‘The Will of the Hive Mind’. It reads “Other creatures you control with counters on them have flying and haste.”

007 First Light is set to release for PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on March 27, 2026. It’s a new origin story for James Bond, so it stars a young version of the MI6 agent, before he becomes the slick professional who’s been a cinema mainstay for decades now. The game is developed by IO Interactive, the same team that made the Hitman: World of Assassination games. It’s available for preorder now in several editions. Read on to see what comes in each one.

007 First Light – Collector’s Edition

PS5

• Get it at Amazon – $299.99
• Get it at Best Buy – $299.99
• Get it at GameStop – $299.99

Xbox

• Get it at Amazon – $299.99
• Get it at Best Buy – $299.99
• Get it at GameStop – $299.99

PC

• Get it at Amazon – $299.99
• Get it at Best Buy – $299.99
• Get it at GameStop – $299.99

The Legacy Edition comes with the game itself, plus the following extras:

• Golden Gun Figurine with Stand & Secret Compartment
• Certificate of Authenticity
• Steel Case with Magnet & Full Game (Disc)
• Deluxe Ediiton DLC Pack: 4 Exclusive Outfits, 1 New Weapon Skin, Gleaming Gadget Skin Pack
• Exclusive DLC Skins: Golden Gun, Obsidian Gold Suit

007 First Light – Standard Edition

007 First Light Preorder Bonus

As far as I can tell, there is no actual deluxe edition of the game, at least not yet. However, if you preorder the standard edition, you'll get the "deluxe edition upgrade" at no additional cost. Here's what you get for preordering:

• 24-Hour Early Access (digital versions only)
• Deluxe Ediiton DLC Pack: 4 Exclusive Outfits, 1 New Weapon Skin, Gleaming Gadget Skin Pack
• Exclusive DLC Skins: Golden Gun, Obsidian Gold Suit

What Is 007 First Light?

Developer IO Interactive is billing 007: First Light as a “narrative action-adventure game.” You play as a young James Bond who’s a new recruit to the MI6 training program. He’s resourceful and talented, but also cocky and reckless — a more unseasoned Bond than we’ve seen in the movies.

As for the main mission, you’re “in pursuit of a rogue agent who’s always one step ahead.” That’s 009, who’s presumably the main villain. That pursuit sends you to lots of interesting and gorgeous locations around the world. In the trailers, we’ve seen mountainous, watery areas, as well as nightclubs, rooftops, and open-air plazas. It looks like you can drive cars and pilot boats.

You can play the levels stealthily, using gadgets to help get you where you need to be, or you can go in guns blazing — Bond famously has a license to kill, after all. This is no surprise, as the Hitman games famously allow players lots of freedom in how they complete the tasks. You can check out our 007 First Light hands-on preview for lots more info on it.

More Preorder Guides

Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.

007 First Light has set a release date of March 27, 2026, as part of an extensive look at gameplay during a Sony State of Play deep dive.

IOI’s James Bond adventure launches then across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

Pre-orders get an upgrade to the Deluxe Edition for free. This includes 24 hours early access, four exclusive outfits (Day of the Dead, Desert Explorer, Silent Anchor, and Gentleman Operator), a new weapon skin, and the Gleaming Pack (the Gleaming Lighter, the Gleaming Earphones, the Gleaming Phone, and the Gleaming Pen).

During the State of Play, Patrick Gibson (Dexter: Original Sin, The OA) announced the ensemble cast of voice and motion capture actors for 007 First Light, confirming that he will portray James Bond in the game. Classic 007 characters, such as M (Priyanga Burford), Q (Alastair Mackenzie), and Miss Moneypenny (Kiera Lester), also feature, alongside new ones, including Bond's mentor, John Greenway (Lennie James – Fear the Walking Dead, Save Me), and Miss Roth (Noemie Nakai).

007 First Light costs $69.99 / €69.99 / £59.99. The 007 First Light – Deluxe Edition costs $79.99 / €79.99 / £69.99. The 007 First Light – Specialist Edition, offered exclusively on Amazon.com, features standout and unique packaging for the game’s case, as well as an exclusive original outfit for Bond, the Classic Tux.

The 007 First Light – Legacy Edition, meanwhile, will be available for PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC for $299.99 / €299,99 / £259.99. It includes the full game, the Deluxe Edition content, an exclusive Golden Gun weapon skin, the Obsidian Gold Suit outfit, a Golden Gun Figurine with Stand & Secret Compartment, a Certificate of Authenticity, and a Steel Case with Magnet.

We've got plenty more on 007 First Light, including a report on how Daniel Craig’s face was put into a Hitman map in order to secure the Bond rights, and how Queen Elizabeth II’s passing affected First Light’s development. And be sure to check out our extensive 007 First Light preview full of gameplay and story details.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

When it comes to casting, arguably no role in the world garners more attention than that of James Bond. Connery, Brosnan, Craig, each of us has our favourite version of the iconic British spy. Now, following a period of (now confirmed to be successful) internet sleuth work, we have a new face to add to the canon: Patrick Gibson.

007 First Light is the new Bond adventure from Hitman developer IO Interactive, and features a brand-new origin story for the MI6 agent. 30-year-old Gibson will portray the youngest on-screen 007 to date, who is only 26 at the beginning of this story. The Irish actor is by no means a complete unknown, having appeared in TV shows Dexter: Original Sin, Shadow and Bone, and The OA, but is not the superstar casting some might expect when it comes to one of the most enduring roles in all movies.

First Light narrative director Martin Emborg explained the decision not to go with a household name to me on a recent visit to IO’s Copenhagen studio.

“The way that works is less about looking for who becomes our Bond,” Emborg stated. “Who can shoulder this young version of the character? And I think working with big names is a different exercise. It's not finding the character as much as saying, 'Oh, wouldn't it be cool if so-and-so were Bond?' I don't think that was super attractive at any point, actually.”

What Gibson does bring to the role is an excitable confidence and plenty of charm, but with a brashness that suits this inexperienced Bond. “So, very effectively, what he brings to the character is energy," said Emborg.

“He's a very dynamic guy. It's funny, when we're working with the cinematic team, if you're on a very long lens and he's in the foreground, he moves a lot. He also has a great gravity to him. He is someone who can really bring a dramatic performance to life in the room; he just gives you goosebumps immediately. So there's a great kind of balance between it being fun and games and then being able to switch into something that is pretty hardcore serious.”

Meanwhile, classic 007 characters, such as M (Priyanga Burford), Q (Alastair Mackenzie), and Miss Moneypenny (Kiera Lester), also feature in 007 First Light, alongside new ones, including Bond's mentor, John Greenway (Lennie James – Fear the Walking Dead, Save Me), and Miss Roth (Noemie Nakai).

A more famous face did make its way into IO’s production process, though. You can read about how Daniel Craig’s face was put into a Hitman map in order to secure the Bond rights here. You can also check out how Queen Elizabeth II’s passing affected First Light’s development, and the IO CEO’s thoughts on publishing MindsEye following its disastrous launch.

For much more on 007 First Light, make sure to read my extensive preview full of gameplay and story details.

Photo by Bruce Glikas/Getty Images.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.

To say MindsEye suffered from a rocky launch would be a bit of an understatement. A release plagued by a poor critical reception, refunds to players who purchased it, and subsequent layoffs, developer Build a Rocket Boy’s debut game garnered its fair share of negative headlines.

But there was once a time when there was something to be excited about when it came to MindsEye, so much so that IOI Partners — the publishing arm of Hitman and 007 First Light studio IO Interactive — saw enough promise in it to distribute the game.

“The initial talks we had with those guys were to support them”, Hakan Abrak, CEO of IOI, told IGN. “We thought they had some great ideas and a great world in the background that they were building, and hopefully they'll get the opportunity to show more of that in the future. And we just wanted to help them distribute the game.”

At some point along the road, though, the development of MindsEye clearly did not go exactly to plan, and ultimately ended in that negativity-laced launch. For IOI Partners, it obviously isn’t what it wanted to see happen after attaching itself to the Leslie Benzies-helmed project.

“Well, that was definitely tough, right?”, Abrak confirmed. “It was a tough reception. It wasn't what they hoped for, and also what we didn't hope for at IOI Partners. They're working hard on turning that around to regain the trust of the gamers out there, and they have tons of potential and content they're working on. So hopefully they'll succeed with that in the future.”

Soon after MindsEye launched, BARB said it was “heartbroken” over the issues players had faced with the game, and promised to release a series of patches to fix the significant performance problems, glitches, and AI behavior bugs. Rollout of these patches has begun.

Story-driven action adventure game MindsEye was initially designed to be a part of Everywhere, the ‘Roblox for adults’ creation platform led by former Grand Theft Auto design chief Leslie Benzies. BARB eventually switched to focus on MindsEye, but it has so-far failed to do the business for the company.

In July, BARB sources told IGN that Benzies finally addressed staff following the release of MindsEye in a brief video call. According to two people present who asked not to be named in order to protect their careers, Benzies insisted BARB would bounce back and relaunch MindsEye, blaming the studio and the game’s struggles on internal and external saboteurs, among other things.

The future of MindsEye and Build a Rocket Boy remains uncertain. But what about IOI Partners and its appetite to publish more games not made inside the Danish studio’s walls? IOI Interactive will self-publish the upcoming James Bond adventure 007 First Light, but can we expect more partnerships along the lines of the one made with MindsEye, or has this launch left a bad taste in the mouth?

“So, IO Interactive will publish our own games internally,” Abrak confirmed. “IOI Partners? That remains to be seen.”

You can read about how Daniel Craig’s face was put into a Hitman map in order to secure the Bond rights here. You can also check out how Queen Elizabeth II’s passing affected First Light’s development, and our story about the casting of IO's new James Bond here.

For much more on 007 First Light, make sure to read my extensive preview full of gameplay and story details.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.