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Not THAT good. A mix of Hitman and Uncharted that only succeeds in wanting me to play those other games. The Hitman-esque open world sections are far too narrow and guided, completely losing the feeling of endless possibilities and replay-ability of the most recent trilogy. Uncharted style puzzle sections feel like a slog, not particularly challenging, and slow to get through simply because bond is locked at a snail’s walking pace. The hand to hand combat is fun, but once you get a gun, it’s too easy to simply headshot everyone, making you completely ditch the melee/gadgets. Even on Hard mode. The resources system is painfully frustrating, and On multiple occasions, I found myself aimlessly walking around the map looking for chemical or electronic resources to get past a certain part, and at some points even restarting checkpoints to get my resources back because you absolutely need certain gadgets to get past certain parts. It all disincentivizes the use of gadgets in a very frustrating way. The story may very well be the saving grace of the whole thing. While not mind blowing, the core relationships are solid, and I found myself empathizing with a more characterized and fleshed out Bond than often appears in the films. However, I am extremely bored with the aesthetic of high tech capers like this. The magic and fun of bond are the cheesy gadgets, the over the top villains with often times ludicrous plans. With such a grounded story, I found the central plot to be very typical of any other espionage franchise following corruption and technology. It may be a contemporary take, but it doesn’t exactly feel as fun as the early films. Uncharted 4 came out a decade ago. Same with the first Hitman remake. It’s remarkable to me that this game feels regressed from these by a fair amount. I feel the hype has a lot to do with the character and our hunger for simple, single player adventures like this. The basis is here, I just hope the team sees this first entry as a launchpad for sequels that can match or surpass the level of it’s inspirations, instead of feeling like a watered down mixture of them all.

It’s not perfect, and it’s not quite as solid throughout as the first game. But it tells a unique story in a very interesting way. It wasn’t the game we wanted or expected, but I love it for that. Naughty Dog and Neil Druckmann took some bold swings, and they paid off for me.