007 First Light PC Performance Review

007 First Light launches globally on 27th May on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, with a Switch 2 release coming later this Summer. The James Bond franchise making its way back to gaming is a big deal, and 007 First Light arrives as one of the more anticipated PC releases of the year.

Developed by IO Interactive, the same studio behind the Hitman World of Assassination trilogy, the game puts you in the shoes of a young James Bond before he earns his 00 status. It is a third-person action game built on IO's engine, and on paper, it carries some serious production weight. But a great game and a well-optimised PC port are two different things, and after spending time testing it across multiple graphics presets, I have a clearer picture of where 007 First Light stands on PC.

007 First Light PC System Requirements

The requirements are pretty reasonable until you get to the top end. A GTX 1660 gets you in the door at 1080p/30fps, and an RTX 3060 Ti is enough for a smooth 60fps experience at the same resolution. The Ultra tier is where things get spicy — IO is calling for an RTX 5080 to hit 4K at 200+ fps, and that target is leaning on DLSS 4.5 to get there.

My Testing Rig

All testing was at 1080p across Ultra, Medium, and Low presets, both native and with DLSS and Frame Generation enabled.

007 First Light: PC Settings and Features

The settings menu is where I have the most complaints, honestly.

There is no display output option inside the game. If you are on a dual monitor setup and want to switch which screen the game is running on, you cannot do it from settings. You have to use your system shortcut. For a game releasing in 2026, that is a strange thing to leave out.

There are also no actual presets, which means no one-click for Ultra or Medium settings. You’ll have to manually set texture quality, level of detail, shadow quality, and everything else yourself. If you want to replicate what Ultra looks like, you have to dial every slider up individually. It is more work than it should be.

That said, a few things are done well. Upscaling gets its own dedicated section rather than being tucked somewhere obscure. There is a VRAM indicator that shows how hard you are pushing your card. And you can change graphics settings mid-game without restarting, which I used constantly during testing.

Performance at a Glance

Native Performance

Running the game at Ultra with no upscaling or frame generation, the RTX 5070 averaged 88fps with 1% lows at 61fps. Respectable numbers for native rendering, and the experience holds up well on a 180Hz panel. Dropping to Medium pushed that to 103fps, and Low came in at 105fps — and that right there tells you a lot about how 007 First Light is built on PC.

A 17-frame difference between Ultra and the absolute lowest graphics preset is a narrow gap. The GPU was sitting at 94–98% utilisation across every native test regardless of which settings I was running, and the CPU was barely involved, hovering between 25% and 35% throughout. As for the RAM, it hovers around 22GB. The game is deeply GPU-bound, and it stays that way no matter where you set your sliders. Your processor is not going to be the thing holding you back here.

What that means for anyone on a mid-range card is that dropping settings is not the escape route it usually is. The bottleneck follows you down the quality ladder, so if you are struggling at Ultra, Low is not going to rescue you in any meaningful way. The gains just are not very significant.

Switching on DLSS Super Resolution at Quality mode, with no frame generation, moved the Ultra average from 88 to 92fps. A modest improvement on paper, but it comes at almost no visual cost, so it is worth having on if you are trying to squeeze a little more out of native rendering before touching frame generation.

With DLSS and Multi-Frame Generation

This is where the RTX 5070 starts to pull away from the native numbers in a way that actually changes how the game feels to play.

Enabling DLSS Balanced with Frame Generation at 2x takes the Ultra average from 88fps to 181fps, with 1% lows climbing from 61 to 142. That is a significant jump, and on a 180Hz monitor, it lands exactly as smooth as those numbers suggest. The visual difference from native Ultra is not something you are going to notice during gameplay — the image holds up well, and the added fluidity more than makes up for any subtle loss in sharpness that you would only catch if you were pixel peeping.

Pushing Frame Generation to 5x is where the numbers start looking almost unreasonable. Ultra hits 385fps average with 1% lows at 252fps. Medium lands at 397fps, Low at 390fps. The preset gap that was already narrow at native becomes essentially invisible here, which means there is no real reason to run anything below Ultra when FG is active, if you have the card for it. The performance cost of maxing out the settings is negligible, and you get the best image quality in return.

The 1% lows at FG 5x are also worth paying attention to. A floor of 252fps at Ultra and 283fps at Low tells you the interpolated frames are being delivered consistently rather than spiking and dropping. In a fast-paced action game where responsiveness matters, that kind of stability makes a real difference to how the experience feels moment to moment.

007 First Light Gameplay, Graphics, and Combat

Production quality is one area where 007 First Light does not leave much room for criticism. The game looks exceptional — lighting in particular stands out, with environments that feel convincingly rendered and a visual polish that matches what you would expect from a studio of IO Interactive's calibre. The overall story holds up well too, and while it does not throw many surprises at you, the premise of watching Bond earn his stripes is engaging enough to keep you invested.

Combat is where the game genuinely shines. The mechanics feel deliberate and satisfying, with a style that suits the character well — it is grounded enough to feel like Bond without losing the fluidity you want from an action game. Melee in particular has a weight to it that makes the encounters feel rewarding rather than mechanical. It’s a super familiar style, and when combined with tactical use of the gadgets, makes it fun.

There is one thing worth flagging on the performance side that ties directly into combat. When you take a hit during melee, the screen fills with red elements at the corners as a damage indicator, and I consistently noticed a dip of around 4 to 5fps every time it triggered. It recovers quickly, and in the middle of a fight you are unlikely to consciously register it, but it does show up reliably enough that it is worth mentioning.

Verdict

007 First Light is a strong debut for IO Interactive's take on James Bond, and on PC it runs well — with some caveats. The game looks exceptional, the combat is satisfying, and when you have an RTX 40 or 50 series card with DLSS 4 fully switched on, the experience is genuinely impressive.

Frame Generation at 2x is the sweet spot for most people, and FG 5x is a showcase for what NVIDIA's upscaling stack can do when a game supports it properly. The rougher edges are mostly on the settings side.

None of that detracts significantly from what is otherwise a well-optimised, visually polished release. If you are playing on capable hardware, 007 First Light delivers, both technically and in terms of storytelling.