IO Interactive’s upcoming James Bond title, 007 First Light, has recently revealed its official PC system requirements—and the reaction from the gaming community has been far from positive. While complaints about demanding GPUs or CPUs are common in modern PC gaming, this time the controversy centers almost entirely on RAM, an especially painful issue given the current state of the hardware market.
The timing couldn’t be worse.
The global RAM and SSD shortage that began toward the end of 2025 has dramatically reshaped the PC components landscape. As artificial intelligence companies expanded aggressively, vast quantities of memory and storage were redirected toward massive data center operations. Several major manufacturers shifted their production priorities away from consumer hardware altogether, intensifying shortages and driving prices to extreme levels.
Veteran PC gamers may recall the GPU scarcity during the COVID-era years between 2020 and 2022, when graphics cards were nearly impossible to buy at reasonable prices. Unfortunately, the current situation is even more severe. In many markets, RAM prices haven’t just doubled—they’ve increased by as much as six times. Depending on availability and retailer markup, a 64 GB RAM kit can now cost $1,000 or more, exceeding the price of a PlayStation 5 Pro.
Against this backdrop arrives 007 First Light, IO Interactive’s ambitious third-person action-adventure game that follows a young James Bond. The title blends the developer’s signature stealth-driven gameplay—refined over years of Hitman releases—with cinematic, high-energy action sequences inspired by the Uncharted franchise. On paper, it sounds like a winning formula.
For this project, IO Interactive has upgraded its proprietary Glacier engine and entered a close technical partnership with NVIDIA. The game supports DLSS 4 Super Resolution and Frame Generation from day one, aiming to deliver smooth performance without sacrificing visual fidelity. Additionally, 007 First Light will be available through NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW cloud streaming platform.
“Our partnership with NVIDIA on 007 First Light allows us to deliver a PC experience that matches the level of quality we believe the Bond franchise deserves,” said Ulas Karademir, CTO at IO Interactive. “NVIDIA GeForce RTX technologies, including DLSS 4, enable us to achieve exactly that.”
Whether the experience lives up to those expectations remains to be seen. For now, the official PC specifications provide a clearer picture of what players will need to run the game—and that’s where concerns begin to surface.
