There was a period in the early 2000s — around, and just after, Pierce Brosnan's 007 stint — when Bond games were all the rage. And they were, for the most part, pretty decent. I'd argue they peaked with Nightfire in 2002, a solid shooter with fun gadget-laden missions and a gloriously silly plot that eventually takes Bond to space because, well, why not?

The problem was that none of them could hold an exploding pen to the pioneering standard-bearer for both Bond games and the FPS genre as a whole: 1997's Nintendo 64 mega hit GoldenEye 007. More so-so Bond shooters — including a nostalgia-grabbing remake of GoldenEye, this time starring Daniel Craig, that came out on the Wii in the early 2010s — have come and gone in the time since, with the last effort, 2012's critically mauled 007 Legends, putting the polygonal double-O on ice. But now, 14 years later, a new game is set to arrive from Hitman developer IO Interactive: 007 First Light.

Could it be the successor to the GoldenEye throne that we've waited three decades for? Well, first, it has to clear the admittedly low bar set by its other Bond game forebears — not least the aforementioned Legends, which Eurogamer described as a “genuine insult” to the franchise. Nonetheless, there's a lot of promise to the first reveal trailer, which dropped overnight as part of PlayStation's State of Play presentation.

For one, the graphics are straight from Q branch. Further, it will be the first Bond game to feature a wholly original version of 007 — a bold, inspired move that, if all goes well, might set in motion a self-contained Bond game universe. (Sure, 1999's Tomorrow Never Dies and 2001's Agent Under Fire technically did not feature the likeness of Brosnan, but his face was on the box art for both; besides which, Agent Under Fire's in-game 007 model is essentially Brosnan from Wish.)

There's speculation online that the new Bond actor is Patrick Gibson, best known for Dexter: Original Sin, although that is yet to be confirmed. So, what is 007 First Light about? Per the trailer, it's set to tell a reimagined origin story of the superspy.

We meet Bond as a 26-year-old maverick Navy serviceman whose parents were killed in a mountaineering accident when he was a tween; his valiance in combat, and balls-to-the-wall rebellious streak, see him recruited into MI6. “You'll be able to travel the world and discover exciting locations, from snow-drenched mountains to sun-soaked beaches,” reads a developer blog post, which also teases “varied gameplay mixing intense combat, full throttle driving, stealth, and cutting-edge gadgets.” After years of half-baked movie tie-ins and so-so original stories on the PlayStation 2, it's exciting to see a Bond game that doesn't feel like an afterthought. Tonally, it seems to have carried over the gritty realism of the Craig era, albeit softened somewhat; there are plenty of Omega watch-based gadgets on display, and 007's dialogue is classic Bond.

Case in point: asked about his line of work by someone at a party, he looks towards an attractive woman in a dress and quips, “headhunting.”