Simply final week, we acquired the maybe unsurprising information that 007 First Gentle was going to be delayed on Change 2. Once more. That ‘Summer time 2026’ window has been pushed to March 2027, and in gentle of the brand new launch date, developer IO Interactive has spoken about its reasoning for the rescheduling.
In a brand new interview with Inven World, IO technical producer Cristina Vega clarifies that “Whereas being delayed for a 3rd time is definitely disappointing information for followers, this choice was additionally made for his or her profit”. Whereas this delay stemmed from the staff needing “a quick breather” after an prolonged interval of pushing the event, “mixed with requests from advertising and marketing and varied different components” and implementing a brand new ‘Meshnets’ rendering system, Vega is reassuringly optimistic concerning the Change 2 port as an entire:
The Change 2 porting work goes very effectively. Just lately, whereas getting ready a presentation for Gamescom, we in contrast footage we labored on again in March with the outcomes from this summer season, and there was actually a lot progress.
The producer notes that getting the port working at a steady 30fps is the staff’s “highest precedence”. “Once we first began engaged on it, we experimented with making use of completely different body charges relying on the decision,” she continues, “We even tried seeing if we might run cinematic scenes at a special body charge, however in the end it did not work correctly”.
Naturally, the staff has needed to make some cutbacks to get issues up and working on Change 2 — “some compromises are inevitable,” Vega tells Inven World. Nonetheless, the producer clarifies that the staff “made these selections in areas that are not very essential to gamers”. NPC and enemy numbers have stayed the identical within the Change 2 model, although the staff has dropped the standard on choose background property to maintain issues up and working — “we selected technical options as an alternative of radical compromises”.
All of it makes a whole lot of sense, even when one other delay is disappointing to all these of us desirous to go hands-on with First Gentle proper now. We have been fortunate sufficient to see a quick slice of the sport on Change 2 at Gamescom this 12 months, and we got here away pleasantly impressed with the entire thing. Our beautiful video producer, Alex Olney, even captured some gameplay of his session, which you’ll be able to take a look at beneath.