James Bond is making a free first impression. 007 First Light — called one of 2026's biggest surprises by Kotaku — now lets anyone play its opening mission at no cost, via a new demo released Wednesday.

The hook goes beyond a simple taste test: progress from the free mission carries over into the full game for players who decide to buy and keep going. That removes the classic demo friction of replaying content you've already finished, and turns the trial into a genuine on-ramp rather than a disposable sampler.

Free opening chapters have become one of the industry's most effective conversion tools, and they tend to appear when a studio is confident the first hour sells the rest. For a Bond game that arrived with modest expectations and ended up a critical surprise, the math is straightforward: the game's best advertisement is the game itself, and word of mouth works better when the barrier to entry is zero.

The demo is available now. For anyone who watched the positive reception from the sidelines and stayed skeptical — the opening mission is the pitch, and it's free.