Tutorials. The spinach of video games - everybody knows they're good for you, nobody actually wants to sit through them. Well, strap in, because according to Kotaku, 007 First Light might have just pulled off the impossible: making the tutorial section genuinely fun.
The trick, it turns out, is leaning hard into the James Bond fantasy. You're not just learning how to press buttons - you're a fresh-faced recruit going through actual spy training. The game wraps its onboarding in a narrative context that makes the whole thing feel like a proper story beat rather than a glorified instruction manual shoved in your face before the real game begins.
From noob to 00-agent, speedrun%
The setup follows a young Bond having to earn his chops, which maps perfectly onto the player's own learning curve. Instead of a disembodied voice telling you 'press X to punch,' the training montage framing gives every mechanic introduction a reason to exist within the world. It's the difference between a loading screen tip and actually living the moment your character learns a skill.
It's a clever bit of game design that a lot of studios seem allergic to. Most tutorials treat players like they've never held a controller in their lives, interrupting the pacing with giant glowing arrows and unskippable pop-ups. First Light apparently decided the vibe matters just as much as the information being conveyed.
The power of narrative-driven onboarding
This isn't just a cosmetic fix slapped on top of the same old tutorial structure - the framing actually changes how the whole sequence feels to play through. When the game's story gives you a reason to be learning these skills, suddenly you're not grinding through a checklist. You're roleplaying a baby super-spy figuring out how to not get killed, which is infinitely more engaging than 'welcome to the game, here is a locked door, here is a key.'
007 First Light is clearly betting big on making players feel the Bond fantasy from the very first button press - and if Kotaku's impressions are anything to go by, it's landing. Whether that energy carries through to the full game remains to be seen, but getting the tutorial right is genuinely half the battle. A lot of games could learn from this particular chapter in the spy handbook.
