007: FIRST LIGHT

MY ROLE

IO INTERACTIVE, BRIGHTON, ENGLAND

I started working on 007: First Light in November 2025, and the game was released on 27th May, 2026.

I joined the team 7 months before the game's release, where I helped finalise the game, designed missing menus, clarified states in the UI, reviewed the game for high-priority UX problems, which I designed and saw through from design to implementation.

LANA DEL REY 007: FIRST LIGHT - OFFICIAL SONG

FULL GAME:

Åsa Roos, Lead UX Designer

Anna reported directly to me when she was working as a senior UX designer on 007 First Light. We brought Anna in as support to make sure that all areas that needed UX were covered on the project.

Anna was introduced to the project when there was little bandwith to properly onboard her, but she did a very good job of picking up the slack and helping out where needed. She worked primarily on making sure that the PC version of the game was up to standard, and she also helped out with tutorials, instinct and a few other features.

Anna has a strong foundation and knowledge of UX and without her, 007 would not be to as high a quality as it is. For someone coming in in the middle of things, and only staying for 6 months, she had a huge impact and she did a very good job supporting me in shipping the game.

STORES

TACSIM + MAIN STORES

DESIGN & PURCHASE FLOW

I designed the full screen-flows from browsing items to purchase and celebration, and layouts for all screens with different types of content that would be sold.

I used the grid structure of UI elements and images that UI Art had established so we could get the Store screens into the game effectively and within the short deadline.

I also designed the Main Game Store since I first designed the TacSim Store. When I saw that the Main Store was also needed, I took over that design and made sure we could use the same structure of the screens for both (saving implementation time at a critical stage before the game was set to launch).

STATES FOR BUTTON

LIST EVENTS NEEDED

I made sure we knew all states and actions that were needed in the Store screens (TacSim + Main Stores) so we could plan out the design for it.

Some states and information were needed for launch, while others were wanted for future content and new events planned by the content team.

PROTOTYPE

KEYBOARD + MOUSE INTERACTION

To make sure the new Store screens and flow I was designing would work for both Controller and KBM, I set it up to be tested in a Prototype.

This also helped show the screen flow, to show the intended interaction for the marketing team and the UI engineers for implementing it all.

HUD & GAMEPLAY

INSTINCT FEATURE

DESIGN & NEW HUD LAYOUT

I worked on the Instinct feature of the game; a list of special charm-abilities James Bond can use to get past guards and enemies to avoid an open fight.

First, I identified when each ability could be used in the game and removed the Focus ability to instead only be visible while aiming a gun.
Second, I moved where the Focus UI was placed on the HUD to make it both clearer and create better balance with the other HUD elements.

I also worked together with the feature owner in the combat team to have the instinct-point system work differently: simplifying and making it different from other abilities.

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HUD STATES

WIDGET STATES

I did a pass on when some of the HUD widgets should be shown or hidden, available or unavailable.

Combat: Item interactions - We worked out a design to show a clearer hierarchy for objects showing the outcomes of the interactions.

Red vs yellow rings around the button prompt on objects for combat actions and no colored circles on normal interactions.

DOOR INTERACTIONS

DOOR STATES

The Tutorials for Mafia: The Old Country were built into the story and different chapters.

I set up the structure of what players should learn, what we need to repeat to make sure it's remembered, wrote Tutorial texts, and implemented the texts in Unreal.

We set up the design for both small Tutorials to show during gameplay to not be too interruptive, and large Tutorials with images and more text to explain a feature more in depth.

OWNING KEYBOARD+MOUSE

GAMEPLAY KBM BUTTONS

PC CONTROLS

I reworked the Keyboard + Mouse buttons and keybindings across all Gameplay controls and menus.

They both had to work for keyboard ergonomics, for the UI designed for Controller buttons, and follow the latest big AAA action-adventure-KBM controls players were used to and expected in this game too.

This was a deep and focused collaboration with combat designers, gameplay designers, the UI engineer, and the accessibility expert to create a better button design that everyone, especially combat designers and game leadership, was happy with.

MENU KBM BUTTONS

PC NAVIGATION

Another of the main areas I worked on for the game launch was to update the navigation and interactions across the menus for PC: mouse and keyboard navigation.

I made sure full navigation worked both only with Keyboard or only using Mouse.

It was important to look at the unique interactions of mouse navigation with clicks and hover-over states needed to change the menu logic. I worked together with the UI engineer to come up with a hover and navigation design that worked best and was implemented correctly.

FTUE & ONBOARDING

BOOTFLOW OPTIONS

FIRST SETTINGS IN BOOTFLOW

I worked through what settings options we wanted to offer in the Bootflow, when first starting up the game.

This was to meet Xbox Accessibility Requirements and offer other options needed for the game's menus and gameplay.

TUTORIAL WRITING

QUALITY UX WRITING PASS

I rewrote the Tutorial texts across the first 3 gameplay levels for consistency, simplifying wording, shortening sentences, and ensuring the Mouse & Keyboard button prompts matched the gameplay control changes I had made.

email: helloannawikstrom@gmail.com