IO Interactive unveils new engine technology for 007 First Light

IO Interactive, the studio behind the Hitman series, detailed the graphics upgrades powering its James Bond title 007 First Light. The company introduced a real‑time global illumination system, dynamic asset streaming and a software‑based ray‑tracing solution that does not rely on dedicated RT cores in NVIDIA, AMD or Intel GPUs.

According to the developers, the new lighting pipeline modifies each pixel’s illumination and includes a fallback sampling method, offering high optimisation and scalability across all target platforms. The ray‑tracing code was rewritten almost entirely to better utilise GPU resources, simplifying the rendering pipeline and reducing development workload. The changes were highlighted in a Digital Foundry discussion with IO Interactive staff.