The 007 First Light ending leaves the player with a number of questions. Will there be DLC? When is the sequel coming? Who is Isola Vale working for, and what’s her real name? Is Damien actually dead? What will THEIA be used for, wherever Isola takes it? And most importantly: Can we drive that Valhalla car again?
Some of these we know the answer to. Others, we can only speculate. Here’s everything we know about the 007 First Light ending, DLC and sequel rumors, and more.
[Ed. note: Spoilers follow for 007 First Light.]
007 First Light ending recap
Firstly, let’s go back over 007 First Light’s ending, in case you missed anything. In Antarctica, after Isola helps Bond reach the HYPERION core, Sir Nicholas Webb tries to stop him. Isola walks in and shoots Webb, leaving him for dead. She tries to steal the HYPERION core but Bond chases after her as she flees towards the enormous submarine that emerges from the depths below (the same one that Isola communicated with via radio when she and Bond arrived in Antarctica). Bond shoots the HYPERION core, destroying it, but leaving Isola unharmed.
The pair awake in adjoining MI6 cells, at which point invading hostiles trigger the system that lets them both escape. Isola leaves, while Bond has to fight his way through the MI6 offices to escape. Turns out the folks storming the place are Damien’s goons, and Bond catches up to him by the THEIA core. Damien stabs Moneypenny in the abdomen and escapes with THEIA, at which point Q shows up to look after Moneypenny while Bond chases after Damien. (You also get to use the minigun- and missile-stocked Valhalla Aston Martin during one way-too-brief sequence.)
The final boss fight ensues, which culminates in both Bond and Damien submerged in water. Bond — and the THEIA core — are saved by Isola, and she runs off with the latter, which is the last we see of her. Damien is left underwater, presumably dead. The final scene of the game shows Bond and M, standing at Greenway’s grave, where the MI6 head confirms “all charges” against Bond have been dropped (remember that Bond was deemed a terrorist due to his actions earlier in the game).
M also explained that Foreign Secretary Stephen Bright has doubled the MI6 budget in exchange for M testifying that his only crime was “keeping bad company.” Bond also finally earns the 007 moniker, but not before M explains “there’s an unseen hand operating in the shadows, playing a game we know nothing about” and asks him to look into it.
Once the scene fades to black, a line appears: “James Bond will return.” This seemingly confirms a sequel, but it’s important to note that since Thunderball (1965), this line (or a very similar variant of it) has appeared at the end of every James Bond film. Technically, though, since Bond is still going, it’s never been incorrect either.
Does 007 First Light have an end credits scene?
Nope! Moving on.
Who is Isola Vale working for?
The first major question that needs answering is who the “unseen hand operating in the shadows” is, aka who is Isola Vale working for? Any Bond fan will immediately think of Spectre (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Revenge, and Extortion), a criminal organization led by Ernst Blofeld. The group first featured as the primary antagonist for Bond and MI6 in Thunderball (1961), and consistently reappeared until Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Spectre then disappeared until Spectre (2015), at which point Quantum, the terrorist group in Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008), is revealed to be a subsidiary of Spectre.
In short, they’re Bond’s most well-known enemy, and it’s the obvious answer for who Isola Vale answers to and who wants the THEIA core. However, they’re not the only option. Bond mentioned the CIA when asking Isola who she’s working for, and while she gave a convincing rebuttal, well, let’s just say her argument was a little too conveniently thought-out. There’s also the chance that developer IO Interactive has designed an entirely new organization for the game, to effectively grant complete creative freedom.
Finally, and the funnest yet least likely theory, is that IO Interactive is going to blend its James Bond and Hitman universes by making the ICA (International Contract Agency) the group operating behind the scenes. The ICA has plenty in common with Spectre — they’re a shadowy organization that operates globally, with professional assassins and espionage their forte — so they’d be the perfect crossover option. Alternatively, also from the Hitman universe, Providence would fit the bill, as Agent 47’s main foe in the World of Assassination games. Providence and the ICA are remarkably similar, especially since Agent 47 has also fought against the ICA at times, despite them being his employer throughout most Hitman games.
Is Damien really dead? Really?
The other big lingering point from the 007 First Light finale: Damien’s fate. It’s certainly implied that he drowned when he and Bond fell into the water, but it was also implied that he was dead when Bond fought him in Vietnam, dropping dozens of 2,000-pound metal tubes on his face. Yet he nevertheless returned as the man with the golden mask (this time augmented by a high-tech exoskeleton), so could we see him return again? His father, Sir Nicholas Webb, is confirmed to have been killed by Isola Vale next to the HYPERION core, since Bond and M attended his funeral before the credits.
Why did Isola pull Bond out of the water? In that scene, she rescues the THEIA core first, before diving back down to pull him out as well, then kissing him (or helping to clear the water from his lungs, however you interpret it). She then says “Don’t get used to it,” referring to the kiss, and leaves, THEIA core in hand.
There are two feasible reasons: either her organization had ordered her to keep Bond alive (or would otherwise benefit from him being alive), or she showed that despite her hardened exterior, she is still a human being who couldn’t bear to let him die. It’s most likely the latter, because the two clearly had rapport and struck up a very flirtatious friendship throughout the game, with one scene implying they hook up, but the thought of Spectre (or another criminal organization) trying to recruit James Bond, of all people, is amusing.
Will there be a 007 First Light sequel?
While IO Interactive hasn’t provided an outright “yes” to this question yet, it’s a safe bet that there will be a sequel. First and foremost, as mentioned above, the game closes with the “James Bond will return” motif. If 007 First Light was intended to be a one-off, chances are that wouldn’t show up. We also need to take into account the fact that the game ends on a serious cliffhanger. If IOI hadn’t intended to make another game, the story would’ve likely been wrapped up without as many loose ends.
Back in 2024, IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak, told IGN that he hoped First Light would be the start of a 007 video game trilogy: “But what’s exciting about that project is that we actually got to do an original story. So it’s not a gamification of a movie. It’s completely beginning and becoming a story, hopefully for a big trilogy out there in the future.”
007 First Light has also performed remarkably well. In just 24 hours, it sold 1.5 million units, and critically, it reviewed fantastically. Our own review explains that it’s “tough to argue against it being the best Bond game of all time.” In other words, it’s the perfect recipe to green-light a sequel. While First Light was in development for seven years, it’s a reasonable hope that it won’t take quite so long to develop the sequel, since the studio has nailed the format now.
Will there be 007 First Light DLC?
Finally, it’s time to talk about DLC. In an interview with Eurogamer, chief development officer Véronique Lallier explained that “there will be a roadmap of content” for the TacSim mode in 007 First Light that will arrive post-launch. If you haven’t tried out the TacSim yet, it’s essentially the replayable mode where players can tackle a variety of challenges, including with various gameplay modifiers and tools at their disposal.
In the same interview, senior combat designer Tom Marcham shed some light on how much potential the TacSim has: “There might be encounters where there was no combat encounter there before at all, and now we’ve actually reused the space in a clever way. TacSim is basically a space in which we can remix our levels.”
In fact, we know one new TacSim addition will be coming soon: the Valhalla Protocol. This is used near the end of the game for a brief section where Bond uses its weapons to unleash hell on Damien’s lackeys, but we don’t get to use it anywhere close to its full potential. We don’t know much about Valhalla Protocol yet, but since it’s showing up as “coming soon” on 007 First Light’s main menu, we probably don’t have long to wait. As for story-based DLC, that’s less likely due to how we’ll probably see a sequel, but never say never.
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