007: First Light Is Dating Itself Immediately With Its Khaby Lame Cameo

Video games take a really long time to make nowadays. Whenever I need an easy reference for how bad things have gotten, I look back on the original trio of Uncharted titles. In the span of a single console generation, Naughty Dog developed and released a trilogy of killer action epics that built on each other in profound visual and mechanical ways, transforming and elevating their overcrowded genre, in only five years.

Drake’s Fortune, Among Thieves, and Drake’s Deception are all beloved games in their own right and were delivered with a cadence that allowed the franchise to remain constantly relevant in the hearts and minds of gamers. Even the gap between the third and fourth game was only five years, with The Last of Us arriving from the same studio right in the middle. Since then, however, we have come to expect such a high level of photorealism and mechanical nuance in triple-A titles that the majority of them take half a decade to develop. That status quo is simply not a sustainable one, and has resulted in this past console generation feeling far too empty.

This brings me to this week’s launch of 007: First Light, which hits early access today off the back of extremely positive reviews. Five years since its announcement, the game is finally in our hands. Unfortunately, some aspects have already aged like ice cream in the sun. It’s really hot in the UK right now, so please roll with that.

Why Is Khaby Lame in 007: First Light?

James Bond is a huge property, and one I have to imagine was a logistical nightmare for IO Interactive to work with — even if the finished product is shaping up nicely. There are so many ways the character likely needs to be presented, how its story needs to be told, and how its moment-to-moment gameplay experience needs to appeal to mainstream audiences while also feeling quintessentially IO. Amazon MGM probably also wants it to sell millions, so any and all measures will be taken to make that a reality. This includes an unexpected cameo by TikTok star Khaby Lame, who has previously appeared in other massive games like Fortnite.

If you don’t recognise Khaby Lame by name, you will no doubt recognise his popular TikTok posts in which he makes a now iconic facial expression while pointing out very obvious stuff to the viewer. You will see him mocking overcomplicated lifehacks by offering a selection of simple solutions or poking fun at things that have become the norm online to drive views or engagement. I’ve always found this shtick to be kind of obnoxious, but there is clearly quite an audience for it since Lame has become the most-followed TikTok star on the planet with billions of views to his name.

He has since written books, judged short films at Cannes, been a guest judge on Italy’s Got Talent and become a recognisable face around the globe for doing something that, when you don’t look beneath the surface, is laughably simple. This has all led to him appearing in First Light as someone who points at a sign showing the way to a specific place after James Bond asks for directions. He points at the sign, makes his face, and I assume players are expected to point at the screen and go ‘oh my god it’s that guy from TikTok!’ The whole thing is a little bit silly, and hardly unsurprising for a game that wants to be the biggest release of the year.

Earlier this year also saw Lame’s company, Step Distinctive Limited, acquired by Rich Sparkle Holdings for $975 million. This includes the rights to make an AI digital twin of Lame using his biometric data. Gross...

And Why It Feels Several Years Too Late

I bet someone at IO Interactive, or potentially a figure above them at Amazon MGM, had an idea to include Khaby Lame as a cameo alongside his famous ‘pointing at things’ joke back in 2022 or perhaps even earlier, but failed to realise the game wouldn’t be released for several years. Even Fortnite was late to jump on the Lame train, with his appearance in 2023 catching well-deserved eye rolls from fans who wished his position was taken up by someone else.

That was three years ago, so imagine how out of touch First Light feels by comparison. I’ve seen a lot of posts alongside the lines of ‘okay I’m cancelling my pre-order now’ and while I know many of these are meant in jest, it’s clear there’s a general distaste for this cameo that, ultimately, feels unnecessary. I doubt anyone is going to pick up a copy of First Light because Khaby Lame appears for a few seconds, and expecting it to have that effect reeks of executives going ‘how do you do, fellow kids?’ to me.

But in an ideal world, maybe it wouldn’t feel so outdated? Triple-A games run a huge risk of being visually and mechanically behind the curb when they release because production began five or more years ago, and they seldom have the ability to innovate or take inspiration from how the world around them changes during development. If you do, you might fall into an endless well of feature creep or lose focus on the core creative vision.

This is also why a lot of live-service games are launching in modern times only to crash and burn in a matter of weeks or months. We’re sick and tired of Concord and all games like it now, but we weren’t back in 2019.

From what I’ve played of 007: First Light, it seems pretty great. The stealth is satisfying, the gunplay is fun, and it seems to understand everything that makes James Bond so amazing. But it also wants to be an action blockbuster that anyone can pick up and play, and I think it is trying so hard to be defined as such that it’s throwing in outdated cameos like Khaby Lame trying to look like the coolest kid on the block. The reality? It’s cringe and would be so much better off standing on its own merits.