The free Extended Operations DLC for 007 First Light went live on October 1 with New Game+, a harder 00 difficulty, a Photo Mode and four missions built around the Aston Martin Valhalla.
IO Interactive, the studio behind the Hitman series, says the update answers some of the most requested additions from the 007 First Light community since launch. Finishing the campaign on any difficulty opens New Game+, which restarts the story from the top or from a completed checkpoint while keeping every outfit and gadget the player has earned. New Game+ is also the way into 00 difficulty, which the studio calls considerably harder. The two settings are independent: the earned kit can travel into a replay on Easy, Normal or Hard, so a player can take on 00 difficulty without it or keep it for a relaxed run.
Per IO Interactive, guards on 00 difficulty notice bodies and commotion sooner, some standard guard types are replaced by tougher ones, and gadgets are limited when a guard can see Bond. Fights are far less forgiving too, with two-hit kills and narrower parry and side-step windows.
The Valhalla Protocol, which 007 First Light teased at launch, is now playable as four TacSim missions that put players behind the wheel of the Aston Martin Valhalla in the mountains of Slovakia, by day and by night. The studio says the car is fitted with the same weaponry Bond uses in the campaign, and players need it to take out targets, bank time bonuses and chase the best result. A new TacSim mission also sends Bond back to The Pearl, a luxury resort in Vietnam, to recover classified documents from a guarded villa, and IO Interactive says every area of the property is in play, rooftop included, with the villa's interior reworked to give stealth more room. TacSim missions in general now accept the full campaign arsenal.
Photo Mode, which IO Interactive describes as one of the most requested features since launch, stops the action on a single button press and offers interface hiding, character posing, camera and lens adjustment, brightness and filter controls, and background and logo options for the frame. The studio's list also includes refined weapon-handling animation, and Bond himself can now be thrown off a ledge, a move that used to be reserved for his opponents. None of the listed content is a new story chapter, and New Game+ and 00 difficulty open only after the campaign is finished. That makes Extended Operations, in large part, a reason for players who have already finished 007 First Light to return.
