007 First Light, the first big James Bond game in years, launches tomorrow on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Developed by IO Interactive, the Copenhagen studio behind the Hitman trilogy, it's a fully original origin story following a 26-year-old James Bond, played by Irish actor Patrick Gibson, as he works to earn his licence to kill – read our 007 First Light review for the lowdown. It's a big moment for the Bond franchise. And it's a big moment for Jaguar too.
Why? Because alongside the franchise’s usual luxury signifiers, a futuristic Jaguar EV – the controversial Jaguar Type 00 – appears in the game, rendered in a vivid electric blue (as seen in our in-game screenshot above).
And for anyone who's been following the tortured story of Jaguar's branding over the last couple of years, it's hard not to see that as a pretty big deal.
The Jaguar rebrand
Let's refresh our memories. In November 2024, Jaguar unveiled what became the most discussed rebrand of the decade. A minimalist new logo, a viral teaser ad featuring not a single car, and a pivot to all-electric luxury prompted ridicule, admiration and furious debate in roughly equal measure.
Elon Musk asked "Do you sell cars?" on X, and the widely reported "result" was that sales dropped significantly in the months following the launch.
Why did I put "result" in quote marks? Because actually, that story was a bit misleading. The truth is much less exciting: Jaguar had deliberately wound down production of its legacy models ahead of an all-electric transition. And the brand held firm, insisting it was targeting wealthier, younger buyers willing to spend closer to Bentley or Porsche money.
Now, with its first new production models due to reach the market, the Jaguar EV turns up in one of the most anticipated games of the year, sitting alongside two of the most storied luxury brands in the world. Whether that constitutes vindication is debatable, but it's certainly intriguing.
A very British reinvention
A little extra context here might be helpful. James Bond has long had a seemingly unbreakable association with rival car maker Aston Martin. So seeing Jaguar placed squarely in Bond's world is quite a shift, even if we're talking about a game and not a movie.
Perhaps more importantly, this product placement aligns neatly with the very audience Jaguar is trying to court: younger, higher-income, culturally engaged consumers whom the rebrand was designed to attract.
Furthermore, the parallel with the game itself is hard to miss. If you think about it, 007 First Light itself is in many ways a brand reinvention. We're talking about a James Bond stripped of his established identity, rebuilt from scratch for a new generation. It's not too much of a stretch to say that Jaguar has been trying to do a similar thing since 2024, too.
Whether either reinvention succeeds is ultimately up to audiences. But the fact that they're doing it together, to my mind, gives me the feeling that they may well pull it off.
A fan of 007? Find out what the actors had to say about the experience of voicing a video game.
