‘Goldeneye 007’ Is Heading To Nintendo Switch And Xbox With Big Upgrades

GoldenEye

Xbox

Well that was an unexpected left turn for this morning’s Nintendo Direct. While listing off new Nintendo 64 games that would make their way to Nintendo Switch Online, the segment ended with the reveal that Goldeneye 007, one of the most famous N64 games of all, would also be arriving at last, and would feature online multiplayer.

Then, at the exact same moment, Rare announced that Goldeneye was also coming to Xbox Game Pass with a long list of upgrades, including 4K, better framerates, achievements and they are bringing back split-screen multiplayer, the thing that has recently proven to be too much for Halo Infinite.

A long while back there was a leak for Goldeneye Xbox achievements, which led fans to believe that this was coming…someday, but no one figured that day would be today, and would also happen alongside this Nintendo announcement. Microsoft now owns Rare, so no doubt this N64 re-release has to be done with their blessing to some extent, but MS and Nintendo are pretty good friends when it comes to things like this.

The saga of Goldeneye is extremely long and complicated. It’s not just that Rare has been dragging their feet about a remake for two decades, it’s that rights regarding the game have been a nightmare to work out with MGM over the years, and plans for a remake go all the way back to the Xbox 360 era where licensing issues killed it. It seems after all this time, Microsoft finally gotten it done and figured out a way to do an actual remake of the original game, with seemingly no strings attached.

We do not yet have a release date for Goldeneye coming to either Xbox or Switch, but it’s likely to be some time this fall. I am curious how online gameplay will go on Switch, and strangely, though the Xbox listing talks about split-screen co-op, it does not mention actual online multiplayer. I would guess that’s sort of assumed, if the Switch version has it? But maybe not. We really only do have a single tweet right now that contains all the details they’ve revealed, so there’s a lot more we still need to know. It’s exciting all the same, however, and a moment almost 25 years in the making.

Update: There seems to be confirmation that online multiplayer really is exclusive to Nintendo Switch, though no explanation as to why this is has been forthcoming.

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