GoldenEye 007 is one of the most beloved classic games from the Nintendo 64 era. Not only was it an amazing experience in its own right, but GoldenEye 007 was also integral in shaping the FPS genre into what fans see today. While GoldenEye 007 drew its own inspiration from games like Wolfenstein 3D and shares the credit of popularizing the FPS genre with its contemporaries like Quake, GoldenEye 007 introduced players to a slower-paced, tactical style of gameplay that lives on today in games like Halo Infinite. When considering its legacy, it's difficult to imagine why GoldenEye 007 was never successfully brought back for modern audiences.
Unsurprisingly, GoldenEye 007 has actually had a handful of reboot attempts that never came to fruition. Whether it was the failed 2008 port that was quashed after talks between Microsoft and Nintendo fell through, or the fan-made remake—GoldenEye 25—that was hit with a cease-and-desist by MGM. The closest that fans ever got was 2010's GoldenEye 007 which was a total reimagining of the original game. While 2010's GoldenEye 007 was a mild success, diehard fans of the Rare's GoldenEye 007 were left unsatisfied and remained hopeful that a remake would come along that would scratch the itch left by the original game. A glimmer of hope appeared yesterday when evidence of a GoldenEye 007 remake appeared online that has the chance to fix the mistakes of all its failed predecessors.
A GoldenEye 007 Remake Should Stay Faithful to the Original
The quickest way to ruin any remake is to get too clever. Sure, GoldenEye 007 has aged well in some regards and terribly in others, but developers of the remake have to tread lightly when deciding which features to update and which to leave alone. While it's doubtful that fans would be fussed about simplified vehicle controls in the campaign or various glitches being eradicated, tinkering with fundamentals of the game like the relatively clunky aiming system, might be a step too far. It's important for developers to remember that fans are not dying for new shooters—there's certainly no scarcity of those—they're dying to play GoldenEye 007.
This is the key aspect where the 2010 remake failed. It was a decent game, but it was an entirely different game. It was much more Call of Duty than it was GoldenEye 007. For the latest remaster, developers should use the blueprint laid out by Diablo 2: Resurrected. If any changes are made, they should be minor, quality-of-life changes that would be unoffensive to even the most diehard fan of the original game. For major changes like graphical changes, gameplay changes, and the like, they should be able to be toggled on and off by fans.
A GoldenEye 007 Remaster Should Have Online Ranked Multiplayer
GoldenEye 007 is one of the first multiplayer console shooters and still sits among the best arena shooters for good reason. Among other features, it helped popularize one major aspect that is still present in modern shooters: playlist modifiers like The Man with the Golden Gun—arguably a forerunner to gun game modes— or "The Living Daylights" which is essentially flag tag. It also boasts a handful of stages that are beautifully designed for competitive play like Basement, Facility, Library, and Temple. There's very little work that needs to be done in order to create a fair, competitive ranked mode for GoldenEye 007.
A ranked mode in a GoldenEye 007 remake serves a more practical purpose as well. It could help keep fans invested long after the initial release. While the 2010 version of GoldenEye 007 did, in fact, have an online multiplayer mode, its gameplay paled in comparison to contemporaries like Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops and, as such, failed to generate any serious interest. For a remake of the original GoldenEye 007, the audience is already there, and a ranked multiplayer mode would have no shortage of eager participants. There's one caveat that is paramount for developers to remember when designing the ranked parameters: Oddjob is cheating.
GoldenEye 007 is available on the Nintendo 64.