The name's Gibson. Patrick Gibson. He is the star of 007 First Light, the video game that has sold 2.7 million copies since its release two weeks ago. As a computerised James Bond, Gibson is the first video game actor to lend both his voice and likeness to the role. With endorsement from Amazon MGM and previous brand guardians Eon, there is a case to be made that he is the seventh official Bond and the second Irish one.
Gibson did not know the magnitude of the role when he submitted a self-tape to Danish developers IO Interactive. 'There was talk of martinis in the audition sides that gave me an inkling,' he says. 'Although at that point I didn't believe there was any way it could be that.' When the penny dropped, it tested his anxiety threshold. The key to pushing through was to lean into the pressure. 'I think the enormity of the idea helped me. It felt so impossible as a dream that I was like, sure, may as well throw my hat in here,' he explains.
Back to Basics
007 First Light adds the extra wrinkle of being an origin story. This is not new territory for Gibson, best known for playing young Dexter Morgan in the serial killer prequel Dexter: Original Sin. But there he had the north star of Michael C. Hall's older killer. Although Daniel Craig was 'his' Bond growing up, Gibson resisted aping any one turn, instead looking for common ground between portrayals. 'The most exciting part was stripping away the experiences of the Bonds we've met in books and films and being left with the DNA of who is this person? What ingredients existed before, that were perhaps nature rather than nurture?'
The game's narrative director, Martin Emborg, is more invested in pinning down character qualities over a tick-box exercise in fan service. 'The trappings – the martinis, the one-liners, the tuxedo – very easily get a jokey, tropey quality to them,' he says. 'You need to double down on who the character is, and why he's in situations where those things exist. Taking it seriously is what gives it the gravity that it absolutely needs to land.'
The Signature Line
Saying 'Bond, James Bond' must have been pretty cool. Gibson is cagey about which signature moments appear in the game – it does not open with the gun barrel stroll, for starters – but agrees that outside 'To be or not to be', there are few line deliveries more scrutinised. 'You have to imagine you've never heard it before. You remove yourself from the pop culture element and find truth in those moments. These things are organic happenings, rather than winking a-ha moments.'
If the legacy was not already challenging enough, there is the extra layer of technical abstraction that comes with any video game performance. No jet-setting location shoots here. Filming First Light's several hours of cutscenes required head-mounted cameras, tracking dots all over the face, blinding lights, and an unflattering morph suit. 'You're almost literally naked,' says Gibson. 'Which acting can feel like, but this takes it to a new degree. And then Martin says: Look cool and elegant. Action!'
Interactive Bond
When we speak, Gibson has not yet played the game, nervously trusting that it has come along since early glimpses where 'James Bond would walk in made up of boxes and spheres' and he had to keep it to himself that 'I wasn't totally impressed by the graphics'. There is also the oddness of seeing strangers steer his digital likeness around. 'It didn't really dawn on me until my mate said: I can't wait to play as you in this game, and that is the weirdest thing I've ever thought about.'
Above all hangs the question of where Gibson's performance will sit in the grand scheme of 007. It has been easy to treat Bond's video game adaptations as a geeky offshoot; the buzzier conversation is always around who will play the role on film. Emborg sees the game as its own, meaningful alternative. 'We've had the literary Bond. We've had the cinematic Bond for 62 years. What we have here is an interactive Bond that exists in its own right.'
Gibson seems to be enjoying the full Bond experience. Seeing his character model for the first time (dapper, no tux). Learning what car he will tear around in (an Aston Martin Valhalla). Hearing his theme song (a Lana Del Rey/David Arnold collaboration). For Gibson, these firsts are impossible to rank. 'I had to constantly remind myself that I was doing it. It feels both ingrained, but also a world I couldn't possibly be a part of,' he says. 'I think the only way for me to approach it was with ownership, ignoring the canon and taking this reimagined character into this next stage.'
007 First Light is out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox on 27 May; and releases on Nintendo Switch 2 later in summer.
