Bourne is back. And most importantly, Matt Damon is back as rogue government assassin Jason Bourne, returning to the franchise for the first time since 2007.

In the first full trailer for the latest instalment, Jason Bourne, Damon is back alongside Julia Stiles on the run amid a hacking plot that could be "worse than Snowden" and wrestling with his continuing identity crisis.

Paul Greengrass also returns as director, after bowing out after helming The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) in the hugely popular series based on the thrillers by Robert Ludlum.

Tommy Lee Jones pitches up as CIA boss Robert Dewey, who tells Bourne, "You never going to find any peace. Not till you admit to yourself who you really are."

The Danish Girl's Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander also joins the series for the first time.

Damon returns after quitting the spy thriller series after his third film, The Bourne Ultimatum, saying at the time he felt the story had travelled as far as it could.

Jeremy Renner stepped in for The Bourne Legacy in 2012, which also saw a new director in Tony Gilroy, which emerged to a lukewarm reception.

However, Damon told Variety that the time lapse has helped to put a fresh spin on the Bourne story. "Paul and I kind of talked years ago about perhaps the way forward was just to let time pass and allow the world to change a little," he said.

"Technically when the Bourne character disappears, it's still 2004. So when this next one comes out in '16, it will have been 12 years – in movie years – that the character as been off the grid. So what's happened in those intervening years gives you a story."

Filming has taken place across Tenerife (as Greece), London, Berlin, Washington D.C., and Las Vegas, the latter as evidenced in the trailer where a huge car chase smashes up the town.

Jason Bourne is out in Australia on July 28.