Becoming Bawma

While the character of Bawma was being worked on before Lenny Kravitz officially signed on to the project, Emborg tells us that the star was a big part of creating the character who appears in the trailer shown during The Game Awards.

"We knew the character of Bawma was a larger-than-life, colorful character," Emborg said, "So, when Lenny came on board, he helped shape the character in a big way. He's had a major impact on Bawma; The cool outfit, the character traits, the backstory, all of these things we went back and forth and crafted this character together. We designed the character in cooperation with him."

So who is Bawma, and what do we know about Aleph in Mauritania, the place where Bond will encounter him? Emborg says that Aleph is a perilous place for a young secret agent to try to infiltrate, and Bawma oversees it with an iron fist.

"It is a kingdom, and Bawma is its pirate king," Emborg says. "Aleph is one of the most dangerous places on Earth. Somewhere where, if you don't keep your wits about you, you probably won't make it out. When you first see it, you think it's going to be a high adventure, but the closer you get, you realize how dodgy it actually is. Then, once you enter it, you think, 'I should probably not be here.' It's really one of my favorite locations in the game."

When we asked him what will bring Bond to Aleph in the first place, Emborg didn't want to give too much away. "I think we have an amazing story lined up, and in my dream world, everyone would see the teaser trailer, immediately buy the game, and go in cold," he said. "I love teasing things, but I think the more context we provide in trailers, the less 'cold' players will be going in, so I prefer to keep things fresh."

He did, however, confirm one key thing: Bawma is a villain within 007: First Light, not the villain. There are still more bad guys to come.