How 007 First Light's creators put an Aston Martin Valhalla in a free update

Securing a Bond game was the ultimate wish fulfilment for the cinephiles at Danish studio and purveyor of many fine Hitman games, Io Interactive. And for 007 First Light art director Rasmus Poulsen, it came with a particularly exciting realisation: “ Wait, that must mean we’ll work with Aston Martin, right?"

And work with Aston Martin they certainly did. The game covers quite the spectrum of eras, from the 1970 DBS to its 2006 DBS V12 offspring, and most notably a late-game moment of spectacular catharsis in the Valhalla.

It’s a welcome cameo from the newer plug-in hybrid supercar, but it is just that: a fleeting, tantalising moment of power and control behind the wheel. Fans wanted more. We wanted more. So, quite uncharacteristically for the games industry in 2026, Io Interactive just… gave us more, for free.

The Extended Operations DLC which arrived on 1 October saw the Valhalla return for an extended roadtrip, bound for Slovakia, giving players the chance to savour the car.

But getting here hasn’t been simple. “ We knew we wanted cars that were on the one hand fitting the old world,” says Poulsen, “and cars that on the other hand fit the new world.

“I remember we were discussing the '81 Vantage when No Time To Die came out, and we were like, ‘You did it [first], you b*******.’”

However, being beaten to the punch by the latest big screen Bond did come with a silver lining: the Io team knew their instincts for picking Astons were right. It led them to circle back to another classic they’d considered.

“ The ‘70 or '69 DBS was right on the sort of outer edge of the conversation, too. It’s just such a gentleman's GT car. The grille is so restrained and brutal at the same time, whereas the Vantage is a little more sculpted.”

The ‘70 DBS with all its gentlemanly poise features during a blood-pumping getaway sequence in 007 First Light, painted in ‘back in my day…’ yellow and overflowing with charisma. But the most thrilling Aston Martin drive of the game was still to come. Conversations with the manufacturer went deeper, and the Valhalla was mentioned. Obviously, from that point, it had to feature.

There was just one snag: when Io Interactive started production of the game, the Valhalla didn’t technically exist yet.

“ They let us get a sneak peek at the Valhalla and we got the CAD drawings over. We had our talented art team look at it, and they then were able to develop and refine the vehicle for the game engine use.”

Those CAD files showed the team every nuance of the Valhalla’s constituent parts, down to the last bodywork panel. And that led to the inevitable conversation: "So, weaponry, what do we think?"

Typically, Mr Bond likes his weaponry to deploy from the front in movies. That makes the most sense for the driver: point your car at the thing you want to shoot. But in a game, you’re usually looking at the back of the car from a third-person perspective, so the usual front radiator-mounted gun barrels wouldn’t be noticeable. Poulsen’s team instead needed to devise weaponry that’s visible as you’re looking at the Valhalla from the rear.

“ We knew we needed to have a credible deployment, something that feels real and brutal, and at the same time something that's fantastical and completely entertaining.” So it was that combination of old-school WW2 machine guns and sci-fi devices that inspired the Vallhalla’s unique weapons array in the game, and the side-mounted arsenal is a nod to the fact you’re looking at it in third-person.

Of course, the look and feel of the vehicle is only one half of the equation. Now that the Valhalla’s been given more room to express itself in the free DLC update, the missions and environments have had to stretch out to accommodate it.

“ The entire mission structure is that we want Bond to be reacting and moving forward,” says game director Dominic Vega. “He vaults over cover to take somebody out. He accidentally makes a noise, very quickly has to dispatch three guys, and the last guy is running away, and he throws a hammer at his head and takes him out, right? That's a very Bond-y thing. It's a little bit different than your normal stealth game or your normal action game. We let these dynamics flow through the level. The car chases and the car experiences should feel the same.”

All of which is to say, it’s not quite a joyride to Slovakia. To feel authentically Bond, you need to be just about scraping through, constantly on the knife-edge of disaster. Which, in a £600k supercar, feels all the sharper.

It’s clear Vega, Poulsen and the Io team have taken their role as curators seriously, picking the vehicles that serve the character and the setting, as much as their personal taste. If this were a game purely about satiating their personal taste, though, the car list would look quite different.

Poulsen’s personal choice does actually feature in the game: “It’s the DBS from Casino Royale. The one that flips. If you see the non-sport version, you're like, ‘Ian Callum design,’ right? You go like, ‘All right. Yeah, that's nice.’ And then you see the DBS, and it just gives it 10 years extra legs.”

Vega, though, has a rather different approach: “Both the Moonraker gondola, and the hovercraft [from Die Another Day]. I love cars, and I’ve been recording cars for years, but those are the most fun because they remind you of the width of Bond.”