For your ears only: How music brought the new James Bond game to life IO Interactive Composite photo showing the video game incarnation of James Bond, with musicians Joe Henson and Alexis Smith in the background "Save your lips, because they are a finite resource." Abbey Road studios, November 2025.
Conductor Matt Dunkley is testing the limits of the London Chamber Orchestra's brass section. They've got just one half-day session to record 32 minutes of music for the new James Bond video game, 007 First Light. And that means four hours of non-stop puffing and blowing.
"It's mostly action music, so if you hate us by the end of it that's totally understandable," composer Alexis Smith warns the musicians as the day begins. Smith has been working on the score for the past two years with his co-writer Joe Henderson (the son of Sherlock actress Una Stubbs).
Today's the day it comes together, as 24 musicians breathe life into the music they penned in their cramped east London studio. "The things you can do with software orchestral instruments nowadays is amazing," says Smith. "We absolutely need that as we're mocking things up, but then you come here and you have the best brass players in the world...
It's mind-blowing." As the session starts, the duo – who go by the name The Flight – can't suppress their smiles. "Take that to the bank," whispers Henderson after a the first run-through. In the Bond universe, the music is almost as important as 007 himself. Monty Norman's surf guitar riff and John Barry's sweeping orchestral scores spawned an entire genre of spy music – full of minor key suspense and piercing stabs of trumpet.
If you're one of the three million people who've already bought First Light, you'll know how successfully The Flight have tweaked that template for Bond's latest escapades. The game presents an original take on the secret agent's origin story. When we first meet him, he's a tender-footed Navy aircrewman, thrown into a terrifying hostage rescue in Iceland.
His instincts are impeccable, but he's yet to acquire the sophistication of Ian Fleming's character, much less a licence to kill. Because he's nowhere near achieving 007 status, The Flight reserved the big musical cues for later, and scored the scene like a movie.
"My favourite bits of the Bond films are always the opening sequence, so I really enjoyed the Iceland mission," says Smith. "It's set in this dark, craggy, bleak landscape, and we had the permission to be really electronic and avant-garde. That was really nice, to go somewhere people aren't expecting us to go." IO Interactive A still image from the video game 007 First Light shows a young James Bond staggering away from the wreckage of a helicopter As the game progresses, Bond is recruited by MI6 and familiar sounds creep in.
The Flight had permission to use classic movie motifs, including John Barry's theme from On Her Majesty's Secret Service, anchoring the game in a pre-established universe. "We were very lucky," says Henderson, "because trying to write a new theme or a pastiche is never going to be as cool.
"The main James Bond theme is one of those things that everybody knows," agrees Smith. "You couldn't do a sound-alike of that. It would be terrible." Getty Images A still image from The Spy Who Loved Me, showing Roger Moore as James Bond being held at gunpoint by Barbara Bach, who plays Anya Amasova Even with that scaffolding, the scale of the Bond project was daunting.
The Flight have won multiple awards for games like Alien: Isolation, Assassin's Creed and the Horizon series. But with a background in pop and electronic music (their credits include Bjork, Mel C and the Freestylers), an orchestral suite was a big step. "It was a huge thrill but also nerve-wracking, because it's quite a responsibility," says Henderson.
"You don't realise until you're working on Bond how much a part of you it is." Smith says: "The pressure comes from all those Boxing Day afternoons, sitting on the sofa with your dad, watching the old films. "And even if you're going to have something like this, which is a new angle on the franchise, it's still got to live with all those other great scores as well." The peril of Bond's handlers changing Notably, First Light was the last project supervised by Bond masterminds Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson before they gave creative control to the franchise's new owners, Amazon MGM Studios.
The shock departure came in the middle of production, and the composers briefly worried the project was in jeopardy. "The email chains all changed overnight," remembers Henderson. "It reminded us what a big deal James Bond is - because that news was everywhere," says Smith.
"My family would see that in the newspaper and go, 'Oh, is your game still all right?' "That doesn't happen when you're working on other game franchises." Ubisoft A still from Assassins Creed game, with a male samurai and female ninja character dressed in 16th century outfits, in Japan.
The main is holding a sword while the female is mid action pose. The background shows a large property with trees. First Light isn't set in a specific time frame, but the script references "His Majesty's Secret Service", placing it during King Charles' reign. That gave The Flight permission to leap back into the techno sounds of their formative years, especially in an early nightclub scene.
Later, when Bond is whisked to Vietnam, the orchestra swells with suave panache, immersing you in the action before 007 has even uttered a quip. IO Interactive A still image from 007 First Light shows James Bond reclining on a sunlounger in a tropical setting.
IO Interactive A still from the video game 007 First Light shows James Bond pointing a gun at an armoured henchman, while standing on an airstrip scattered with SUVs and a large cargo plane awaiting take-off. But at Abbey Road, the main concern is a combat scene, where the hero finally breaks cover and engages the enemy.
Unlike a film score, the music requires multiple branching paths. "You may be sneaking around, you may be being chased, you may be fighting," explains Smith. "And the music that you hear depends on how well you're doing as a player." "If you've finished the fight because you've achieved all your objectives, it'll be a different ending than if you just run away," adds Henderson.
"That's what's fun about interactive music," says Smith. "That little puzzle of not everything happening exactly the same every time." The Flight in the studio As the session draws to a close, energy starts to flag. "Can you bear to do one more of those, ladies and gentlemen," pleads Dunkley, "while there's still blood left in your top lips?" In the control booth, mixer Daniel Hayden suggests the high notes are taking a toll.
"If it was down a fifth, it'd be easier," he observes. "Yeah, well, I love F sharp," laughs Smith. The trumpeters valiantly persevere but, by the end of the day, everyone's wrung out. "We had to do a lot of music very quickly, so we're tired and emotional," says Henderson, "but the band were incredible." "My least favourite thing in music exams was sight-reading, so these guys are just amazing," adds Smith.
"They need one take to get the feel, and the second take sounds perfect." Thanks in part to The Flight's music, the game is so cinematic that fans have been petitioning for voice actor Patrick Gibson to play Bond in the forthcoming, Denis Villeneuve-directed film.
The potential for a real-world crossover puts Smith in a philosophical mood. "It's funny," he says, "because on a computer game, often the only thing that's actually real is the music." New James Bond game shows more vulnerable side to iconic British spy Idris Elba: 'Don't try to make James Bond woke' Search for new James Bond officially kicks off as auditions begin Top Scores: The hidden secrets of video game music Is Download's first female headliner a milestone or a 'bittersweet' moment?
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