BBC goes behind the scenes of 007 First Light score recording

The score for 007 First Light was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London with the kind of scale more often associated with a film franchise than a video game. In a half-day session in November 2025, conductor Matt Dunkley led the London Chamber Orchestra through 32 minutes of music, a workload that translated into roughly four hours of continuous brass playing.

The session showed how far major games have moved toward Hollywood production values. 007 First Light is a brand-new James Bond origin story from IO Interactive, built around a young MI6 recruit earning his 00 status, and its music was treated as a central part of that identity rather than a late-stage embellishment. Composer Alexis Smith said he and co-writer Joe Henson had spent two years shaping the score from their east London studio before the live orchestra arrived to perform it.

That process also reflected how contemporary game music is assembled. The BBC noted that the team leaned on software orchestral tools during the writing phase, then brought in live players to give the score its final weight and texture. In an era when publishers are fighting to make games feel cinematic and franchise-worthy, the recording session at Abbey Road underscored that the score now carries narrative responsibility as well as atmosphere.

The Bond music itself was expanded by a second branch of the campaign. In an interview published on April 25, 2026, veteran Bond composer David Arnold said he had written a new 007 theme for the game and discussed how this younger version of Bond differs from the film character. Arnold also co-wrote and sang on the game’s title song with Lana Del Rey, which IO Interactive unveiled on April 16, 2026.

IO Interactive said the title sequence would premiere the next day, on April 17, 2026 at 8 pm BST, or 12 pm PT, on the game’s official channels. The company positioned 007 First Light as a third-person action-adventure game built around stealth, combat, relationships and Q’s gadgets, with launch set for May 27, 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. A Nintendo Switch 2 version was planned for later in the summer, extending a release strategy built to turn Bond’s return into a full-scale multimedia event.