It’s finally happened. After years of rumours, legal standoffs and an almost infinite amount of red tape, GoldenEye 007, Rare’s accidental N64 masterpiece, is free at last. The game, in all its hard-edged N64 glory, will release on Game Pass and Nintendo Switch Online from January 28.
The game has been updated to run in high resolution and at a much smoother frame rate, a godsend for those of us that remember it running at around 15 frames and res the size of a postage stamp. This will be especially beneficial in the game’s four-player split-screen multiplayer, a mode that famously dipped to single frames on its original hardware.
On Microsoft platforms, the game is only coming to Xbox Game Pass at this stage. Apologies to the PC players. Maybe it’ll find its way over to you eventually. GoldenEye 007 will also launch the same day on Nintendo Switch Online as part of its N64 library. That version, obviously, won’t be quite as fluid as the Xbox port because the Switch simply cannot match the Series X|S on hardware.
The benefit of the Switch version, however, is that if you have the wireless N64 controller, you can play the game the way it was originally designed. As someone that unlocked every cheat code the hard way on my old N64 cartridge, I can only imagine what a breeze it will be to tick everything off with an Xbox controller. Play it with an N64 controller and remember how hard it was to wrangle this game, I’m begging you. That we unlocked anything with it is a damn miracle.
One day, someone will tell the story of how this port made it to modern consoles. I look forward to hearing about it.
GoldenEye 007 drops for Xbox Game Pass and Nintendo Switch Online from January 28.
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