Q — 007 First Light Character Guide

Who he is

Q is the head of Q-Branch — MI6’s gadget division — and the man who hands Bond the Q-Watch, the Q-Lens HUD, and the customized Aston Martin Valhalla. Alastair Mackenzie provides voice and likeness, playing him as the dry, slightly exasperated engineer-in-chief that the role has always rewarded.

Story role

Q runs the Q-Lab — the underground London facility where every gadget in First Light is built, briefed, and loaded out before each mission. He is also the character who upgrades Bond’s Omega Seamaster into “Field Operations Mode” early in the campaign, unlocking the base hacking features that the rest of the game is built around.

The famous “seven watches” choice is his. Bond walks into Q-Lab, Q theatrically chucks Bond’s existing watch into the trash, and Bond gets to pick between seven Omega Seamaster variants — a permanent cosmetic decision that follows him for the rest of the campaign.

In Chapter 10: For England, the Valhalla keys are pulled from Q’s jacket in the Wearable section. The car is his work: machine guns and missiles mounted on a road-legal Aston Martin Valhalla, used to dispatch Damien’s mercenaries before the sewer finale.

Q-Lab loadout system

Every mission begins at Q-Lab. Bond assigns up to four gadgets to the Q-Watch slots, plus the permanently equipped Q-Lens and Q-Watch themselves. Two active gadget slots are unlocked at first; a third unlocks later in the campaign. Resources are split into Battery (electrical) and Chemical gauges on the Q-Watch itself.

Trivia

• The Q-Watch laser overheats if you spam it — and when it does, the entire watch shuts down: no laser, no hacking, no electronic disruption.
• The seven Omega Seamaster variants Q offers are a real Omega partnership with IO Interactive — they’re modelled on actual Omega designs.
• Q-Lab is also where the Q-Lab Postcard collectible is found at the end of the maintenance hallway.

Appears in

A Night Out, The Past Never Dies, Uninvited, Knightfall, For England — and any return trip Bond makes to Q-Lab between missions.