Omega’s new James Bond 007 watch comes from a video game – and it's unlike any Bond watch before
The first-ever Bond Seamaster chronograph arrives as Omega takes 007 beyond the cinema screen
JAMES BOND has a new watch. And this time it arrives not in a film but in a video game.
Omega has unveiled the Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph “007 First Light”, a new 44mm chronograph tied to 007 First Light, the forthcoming James Bond game developed by 10 Interactive, the studio behind mega-hit stealth-action franchise Hitman.
The unusual twist is that the watch was originally designed as an in-game gadget (sharp-eyed viewers hitting the space bar at the right time can see it here).
Omega has now turned that fictional watch into a real production model.
The move says something about both Bond and Omega. For three decades, 007 has been one of the most powerful marketing vehicles in modern luxury watchmaking, helping transform the Seamaster from a respected dive watch into a global pop-cultural object. Bond is, bluntly, a banker for Omega.
But the franchise has also been in limbo. No Time To Die arrived back in 2021, Daniel Craig departed in somewhat conclusive style, and there is still no confirmed next Bond film or actor.
The last official Bond tie-in watch was, effectively, the titanium No Time To Die Seamaster launched ahead of that film’s famously covid-delayed release cycle in 2019. Omega, in other words, has had to think outside the multiplex.
The upcoming game itself is an origin story. Bond is 26 years old, not yet the polished operative of later films but a reckless Royal Navy air crewman earning his way into MI6’s Double-O programme. It is also the first major Bond game in years not built around an existing actor’s likeness. The Bond here belongs entirely to gaming culture.
That is not without precedent. Bond has a surprisingly rich video-game history stretching back to the early 1980s, though the defining moment remains 1997’s GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64.
That game became a phenomenon: revolutionary multiplayer, endlessly replayable split-screen shootouts and, for many millennials, their first meaningful encounter with Bond. It sold more than eight million copies and remains one of the most influential console games ever made.
Importantly for Omega, GoldenEye was also the beginning of the Seamaster era. Costume designer Lindy Hemming chose the blue-dial Seamaster Professional 300M Quartz for Pierce Brosnan’s Bond because it felt appropriately naval, modern and understated. Before that, Bond had been more closely associated with Rolex in both Fleming’s novels and the Connery films. Omega changed that permanently.
The original Bond Seamaster, reference 2541.80, was a quartz diver with a blue wave dial, helium valve and steel bracelet. In GoldenEye, it doubled as a laser cutter and remote detonator. Omega evolved the formula through the Brosnan years with the automatic Seamaster Professional 2531.80, before Daniel Craig’s tenure shifted Bond towards heavier, more militarised watches like the Planet Ocean and, eventually, the titanium No Time To Die edition.
The new First Light watch pulls elements from nearly every era. The stainless-steel case measures 44mm and features a polished black ceramic bezel with white enamel diving scale, ceramic pushers, a black ceramic wave dial and bronze-gold chronograph accents.
Inside sits Omega’s Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 9900, visible through a sapphire caseback printed with a special 007 First Light logo. The striped black, grey and beige NATO strap deliberately echoes the palette of the No Time To Die Seamaster. Most unusually of all, it is the first chronograph Seamaster Diver 300M Bond has ever worn. In the game, the subdials reportedly control hacking functions and tactical tools, reviving the gadget-heavy fantasy largely abandoned during the Craig era.
The watch costs $14,800 and will launch alongside the game on May 27.
Thirty years on from GoldenEye, the remarkable thing is not simply that Bond still wears a Seamaster. It is that one of luxury’s most successful product partnerships has now escaped cinema entirely. The future of Bond, it seems, may begin on a console.
Find out more at omega.com
This article originally appeared in Esquire UK.
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