007 First Light does not allow preloading on PC and Xbox prior to release.

007 First Light does not allow preloading on Xbox and PC. This has just been confirmed by the developer ahead of the game's release this Wednesday.

PS5 will be the only platform on which players will be able to preload 007 First Light, and according to the developer, that's because Sony requires it. That means PC and Xbox users will have to start downloading the game once it becomes officially playable (40GB for PS5).

IO Interactive is not doing any Xbox and PC preloads for 007 First Light, which could be due to a Forza leak.

As spotted by ResetEra, the developer addressed this issue in a Reddit thread about the upcoming release.

“Unfortunately, we need to confirm that 007 First Light will not be preloaded on Steam or Xbox,” the developer says. “The earliest you will be able to download the game on Steam and Xbox will be tied to the official release time. PlayStation will be the only platform where it will be available for pre-loading as it is mandatory on the platform.

“We know some of you were hoping to download the game before launch. We apologize for not being able to come to a conclusion on this.”

That last point seems to suggest that this was a fairly last-minute decision. In this case, it could be further pointed out that the decision was made based on the recent wave of game leaks, with Forza Horizon 6 being cracked more than a week before its actual release. Likewise, files for LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight began being shared even before release, and the game was cracked on day one.

At least in Forza's case, it was believed to be responsible because the files shared for preloading were not encrypted. Playground has denied this, but it seems IO Interactive would rather be safe than sorry with a big James Bond release. This makes sense, as game pirates have already made it clear that 007 First Light is their target.

One of the reasons it is targeted is because it uses Denuvo DRM, a software that often causes performance issues on PCs. In recent months, pirates have found ways to circumvent Denuvo by cracking games that use Denuvo shortly after release.