GoldenEye 007 re-release finally confirmed—but it’s not the leaked remake [Updated]

One of retro gaming’s worst-kept secrets has finally been confirmed by a tangled web of game publishers and license holders. GoldenEye 007, the legendary 1997 first-person shooter that changed the genre on home consoles, is coming back.

This Nintendo 64 game’s revival is a case of “mostly good news, some bad news,” as we’re left reading between the lines of two vague announcements from the two biggest companies involved. The best news, at least, is that we now have two announced re-releases for the game, each covered in copyright notices from the Bond license holders at MGM (now wholly owned by Amazon) and longtime Bond series handler Danjaq.

Switch: “Coming soon with online play”

The first confirmation came from Nintendo itself as part of its latest Nintendo Direct announcement frenzy (which, among other things, finally confirmed the next mainline Legend of Zelda game’s name). One portion of the showcase focused squarely on the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack subscription service, which costs $50 per year and includes a number of downloadable N64 games.

After Nintendo confirmed eight more first-party N64 gems coming to the service in either 2022 or 2023, each with a clear look at their emulated gameplay, the familiar MIDI tones of the GoldenEye 007 intro began playing, followed by apparent direct emulation of the N64 version of Bond walking in front of a gun barrel, as framed in the Switch’s N64 emulator interface (meaning that a pattern of dots and a Switch profile icon fills its unused widescreen portions). Nintendo did not confirm a release date for the game beyond saying that it’s “coming soon with online play.” [Update: The Japanese version of today’s Nintendo Direct mentioned a “2023” release date for the game on NSO Expansion Pack. It’s currently unclear whether other regions may get the game sooner.]

The worst news about the Nintendo half of the announcement is that GoldenEye 007‘s online multiplayer component appears to operate inside the console’s N64 emulator. This style of online play famously suffers from slowdown and chugging, owing to a delay-based netcode model that captures player input and then tries to bounce it across three other locally emulated versions of the game. We’d love to be proven wrong and see Rare, which is credited as the game’s maker, build a more streamlined first-person shooter netcode emulation model on Switch.