The James Bond theme music is one of the most iconic and instantly recognizable scores ever made and in IO Interactive’s 007 First Light, the composers were tasked with adding whole new flairs into the classic theme while at the same time retaining everything that made it so timeless. In a recent interview with IGN, bandmates Alexis Smith and Joe Henson talked about the unique process and challenges in making a new score worthy of the 007 pedigree.
The composers revealed that the entire process of scoring 007 First Light was actually far less restrictive and the devs had provided them enough room to take all around creative risks:
“The main thing from IO Interactive was to hold back those [big orchestral] moments to give it to the player when he’s earned it,” Henson says. “Other than that, we weren’t being pushed into any boxes. There definitely wasn’t a style guide that came in from outside saying, ‘This is how you should use this.’ Sonically, how we used that main theme, there weren’t really any rules.”
“The game is split into different locations, and we gave each of these locations a sound,” Smith says. “Bond is brass, Bond is strings. But we, being The Flight, are always trying to push modernity as well because this is a modern take on Bond. So we’ve got to use electronics, use synths and stuff like that in a tasteful way. I feel that is kind of our specialty.”
The composer duo also said that they worked with 007 First Light theme song creators Lana del Ray and David Arnold to make sure the melody of the song would find it’s way beyond the opening credit sequence of the game.
“We used Lana and David’s [song] at very specific emotional points,” Smith says. The first time you hear [that melody] is very early on. It’s kind of Bond’s rebirth. It looks like he’s dead. [But then] he is reborn.”
“Then there are some points much later on in the game where you hear it also,” Henson says. “When he does his first kill. And then at the end, [but] we don’t want to spoil too much.”
007 First Light came out on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC on 27th May and swiftly became the highest rated James Bond title in the last 15 years, or even more. With a highly impressive 87 Metacritic score, developer IO Interactive’s 007 First Light shines vividly and is certainly the best Bond game in several decades, at least.
