007 First Light’s Bluff Mechanic Is a Masterful New Idea That Basically Weaponizes Bond’s BS

Rob Minkley, Crux magazine, here to interview Sir Nicholas Webb. Don't mind me as I rifle through your security office cupboards. John Fisher, museum curator, checking a valuable artefact for damage. Fletcher, operations department, searching for a rogue employee. I'm a lab technician who lost his coat, a tourist who took a wrong turn, a concerned bystander who found this heavily armed man passed out on the floor, the poor sod – and no, that's not the outline of my fist imprinted on the side of his face. Honest. In 007 First Light, James Bond's superpower is literally bullshit. Unlike Hitman’s Agent 47, Bond doesn’t need a disguise: with a single button press he blurts a tale so brazen, so blatantly untrue that it bamboozles anyone in earshot, buying you 30 seconds of peace in any restricted area. Stroll to your objective uninterrupted or, as I often do, pick off your enemies under the cloud of confusion. You can ignore this ability, called a bluff, and make it through the campaign just fine, but you really shouldn't. More than just a silly party trick, it exemplifies the tongue-in-cheek tone of the entire game. This is not Bond the veteran master manipulator, it's a younger, cocki