007 First Light Is Getting a Photo Mode — Here's What It Needs

CoalaTV@coalabr14

10 June 2026 · 6 min read

007 First Light, An Origin Story Worth Experiencing

I'll be honest with you. I went into 007 First Light with high expectations and somehow they still weren't high enough. IO Interactive has done something genuinely special here. The Glacier engine does what it's always done best: craft environments so rich with detail and atmosphere that you find yourself stopping mid-mission just to look around. This is a game that understands cinema.

And I picked up the controller and genuinely couldn't put it down. Not because the missions demanded it, but because I wanted to see what was around the next corner. What the next location looked like. How the light fell at dusk through another impossibly beautiful set piece. For me this is a 10 out of 10, not just as a Bond game, but as an experience.

The One That Got Away — Hitman: World of Assassination

Playing 007 First Light took me straight back to a question I've been asking for years: when is IO Interactive going to give us a proper photo mode?

Hitman: World of Assassination is one of the most photographable games ever made. Think about it.. meticulously designed sandbox environments packed with NPCs, extraordinary lighting setups, and Agent 47 himself as one of gaming's most cinematic protagonists. The Dartmoor mansion at sunset. The neon chaos of Bangkok. The ancient stone corridors of Marrakesh. Every single mission is a photographer's dream.

But despite years of DLC, expansions, and updates, IO Interactive never gave us a photo mode. Not once. The closest thing the community found was a third-party mod, and if you want to know how to get started with that, I put together a full guide on my YouTube channel that walks you through everything.

I've spent hours capturing Hitman shots through that mod. The results speak for themselves.. the atmosphere, the lighting, the sheer variety of moments this game generates are unlike anything else. It was a genuine loss that we never got official tools for it.

Want to capture Hitman: World of Assassination? Check out my full setup guide on YouTube — everything you need to get started with the photo mod.

Here's that guide: How to get started with Hitman photo mode mod

The Roadmap That Changed Everything

So when 007 First Light launched and there was no photo mode on day one, I felt that familiar disappointment settling in. Here we go again. Another IO Interactive game that's going to leave photographers behind.

Then the Year One Content roadmap dropped.

There it was. Photo Mode. Listed alongside path tracing, new missions, and the Nintendo Switch 2 launch. IO Interactive are finally delivering it, and for the first time I'm genuinely optimistic about what it could be.

I do want to be honest about one thing though: launching a photo mode post-release will always have its limitations. The reality is that your active player base is highest at launch. That's when people are most engaged, most likely to share screenshots, most likely to generate the kind of organic social content that benefits everyone. A photo mode at launch reaches the widest possible audience. Post-launch, you're catching people who've already moved on, or bringing back those who specifically wanted this feature, but the peak moment has passed.

That said, I'll take it. A photo mode on 007 First Light is better than none, and the fact that it's confirmed and coming gives me reason to go back and cover the expansion too. When it drops, I'll be first in line.

What 007 First Light's Photo Mode Needs — My Top 5

I've been capturing this game on PC since launch, and having spent serious time with it I have a pretty clear picture of what would make its photo mode something special. Here are my five must-haves:

#1 — Free Camera with Full Tilt

This is non-negotiable. A free camera with full tilt up to 90 degrees in both directions is the baseline standard for any serious photo mode in 2026. The game's environments demand it. You need to be able to get low, get high, and frame shots from angles the gameplay camera never reaches. If the range is limited, so are the possibilities.

#2 — Camera Range

007 First Light's locations carry unmistakable IOI DNA. The same obsessive environmental detail that made Hitman's levels so iconic is all over this game. But to do those environments justice, you need genuine camera range. The ability to pull back far enough to frame the full scale of a location, or push into intimate corners the player never normally sees. A two-metre camera radius won't cut it here.

#3 — Custom Lighting

The lighting in First Light is genuinely stunning, but some of the game's darker environments, certain indoor sequences, night missions, shadow-heavy corridors. Make it nearly impossible to capture a clean shot. A basic three-point lighting system would transform these moments. Even something as simple as what Returnal or Gotham Knights implemented would do the job. Give me control of the light and I'll give you images that make people want to buy the game.

#4 — Basic Post-Processing Controls

Exposure, contrast, bloom — the essentials. But just as importantly: the ability to remove on-screen effects. Damage indicators, slow-motion overlays, the "License to Kill" visual distortion — these are great for gameplay but they destroy screenshots. Clean the frame up, give us the raw image, and let us decide how to grade it.

#5 — A Proper Shortcut

This is the one people underestimate until they actually need it. When you're mid-mission and something extraordinary happens. The light catches perfectly, Bond vaults over a railing, a crowd parts just right, you have maybe a second to capture it. The shortcut to open photo mode needs to be fast, accessible, and not overlap with other inputs. I've set mine to L3+R3 pressed together, but the License to Kill slow-motion trigger makes that unreliable. IOI need to think carefully about this one.

We will definitely be seeing Agent 007 at the Photo Mode Awards when First Light's photo mode launches — watch for the People's Choice category.

Final Thought

007 First Light is a game that deserves to be photographed. The world IO Interactive has built the environments, the lighting, the characters, the moments. It is cinematic in every sense of the word. The photo mode is coming, and when it does, I genuinely believe it has the potential to be one of the best in the genre if IOI put the same care into it that they put into everything else.

In the meantime, get out there and play it. Just don't be surprised if you find yourself wishing you had a camera in your hands.