Load up your silenced PP7s and prime those remote mines: GoldenEye 007 is coming to Nintendo Switch Online, adding online multiplayer for the first time, the company revealed in Tuesday’s Nintendo Direct livestream. The James Bond-themed first-person shooter will join the Switch’s selection of Nintendo 64 classics “soon,” the company said.
It’ll also come to Xbox Game Pass for Xbox One and Xbox Series X and S, and developer Rare noted that this version will include “achievements, 4K resolution and a smoother framerate.” It’s unclear if the Switch version’s visuals will be upgraded (Nintendo’s console doesn’t support 4K; we asked Nintendo and Rare to clarify) or remain closer to the N64 original, but the Switch and Xbox versions will come out on the same day.
25 years after its original release, experience GoldenEye 007 faithfully recreated for Xbox consoles. Includes achievements, 4K resolution and a smoother framerate – even in split-screen local multiplayer! Coming soon to @XboxGamePass. pic.twitter.com/kpBlJKqFR9
— Rare Ltd. (@RareLtd) September 13, 2022
In an apparent tradeoff, the Xbox version doesn’t seem to have online multiplayer like the Switch one, but will be available for free to people who own a digital copy of Rare Replay, the 30-game compilation of classics that came out in 2015.
GoldenEye 007 hit the N64 in 1997, as a licensed tie-in to the 1995 movie that introduced actor Pierce Brosnan as the legendary British agent. The game won critical acclaim for its fun single-player campaign and epic split-screen competitive multiplayer. Microsoft acquired developer Rare in 2002.
Fans have been expecting a remaster for Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and S to be revealed for months, since achievements for this remaster have leaked multiple times, so that could happen soon. It was reportedly planned for release on Xbox 360 in the late 2010s, and an apparent extended gameplay video appeared in 2016. At the time, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said the game’s licensing rights complicated efforts to get it on the console.
Read more: GoldenEye at 20: We Raise a Martini to a Classic Game
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Bond movie franchise — with latest film No Time to Die now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video — but the series is in a state of flux as fans await the announcement of Daniel Craig’s successor in the role. Hitman developer IO Interactive is also working on its own Bond game.
