Bond will soon look better than ever thanks to an upgrade coming to 007 First Light. The first major game release in the James Bond franchise since 2012, First Light was developed by Hitman creator IO Interactive, and released earlier this year to solid reviews. ScreenRant‘s Kyle Gratton praised the team’s approach to adapting the seminal spy novels and the films they inspired, saying, “Sometimes the biggest questions – Who should be responsible for Bond’s return to gaming? – require the simplest answers: The Hitman developers, obviously.”

While IO still hopes to create a series of Bond games in the vein of its Hitman: World of Assassination trilogy, the possibility is still uncertain, and we’re still waiting for news on that front. In the meantime, though, fans will soon have the chance to see Bond in a whole new light.

Per Dark Side of Gaming (DSOG), chip manufacturer and graphics powerhouse NVIDIA is set to release a path tracing patch for 007 First Light on September 15. This improved lighting will bring a whole new look to First Light, which will also incorporate NVIDIA’s DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction features this September for even better visuals.

Path tracing is a computer graphics rendering technique that simulates how light sources pass through and reflect off of real-world objects, helping to create a more realistic graphical style. It can imitate effects similar to those of professional-grade film equipment, which is perfect for First Light‘s overall cinematic look. Path tracing is often contrasted with ray tracing, an alternative light rendering technique that can create similarly realistic effects, but is a lot more demanding on your PC’s resources.

Naturally, this feature will only be available on the PC version of First Light, and only to those with NVIDIA GPUs, so console players and those with AMD chips will still only be able to use the existing graphical settings. The same goes for players of the upcoming Switch 2 version, which is rumored to be coming out in September as well.

This also follows the announcement of upcoming story DLC for First Light, which will add a character played by singer-songwriter-producer Lenny Kravitz to the pantheon of Bond villains. The DLC, announced at Summer Game Fest, is currently in development with no officially confirmed release date.

Regardless of the game and the franchise’s future, though, it’s clear that IO isn’t done with 007 quite yet. Bond fans on PC should keep an eye out for this update, which will have 007 First Light looking better than ever.

Systems

Released

May 27, 2026

ESRB

Teen / Blood, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence, In-Game Purchases

Developer(s)

IO Interactive

Publisher(s)

IO Interactive