Follow the passage of the canceled GoldenEye 007 -apkrig remaster
It’s only been a few days since we discussed the future of James Bond detective games in Vortex. Developers from the IO Interactive studio have completed a new Hitman trilogy, and Agent 47 will be replaced in their portfolio by Agent 007, which could also appear in three games. We do not know what they will be, but the Danish developers have something to build on and also what to build on, given the many titles in which James Bond has appeared in the past. And it is fitting that at the moment we are talking about one of the most famous and popular – GoldenEye 007. However, not about the original game from 1997 as it was released for Nintendo 64, but about the never released remaster, which was to arrive eleven years later on Xbox Live Arcade and Nintendo Wii platforms.
Game historians have long known about the project that Rare Studio worked on in 2007 and 2008 – it was openly discussed, for example, in the Xbox World 360 issue in 2008, and later short videos capturing the unfinished version of the game leaked to the Internet. Now, however, there has been a two-hour passage through almost all missions, including split-screen multiplayer previews, and fans have remained in silence. Behind the escape is an enthusiast with the nickname Graslu00, who on his YouTube channel deals with older games and especially those with James Bond, so that less than a day old material fits perfectly into his usual work. But Graslu00 is not in the case mentioned longlpaye too shared and doesn’t want to share many details, especially what got access to the filmed version of the game.
Interestingly, the person who provided the GoldenEye 007 build for XBLA reportedly plans to release it later this year.
However, he states that he went through the game on the Xenia emulator, thanks to which he was able to set the resolution to 4K and play at 60 fps, which greatly benefits the recording. In the section of improvised questions and answers, he refuses to reveal where he came across the game and mentions perseverance as the only clue. It is also interesting that the person who provided the GoldenEye 007 build for XBLA allegedly plans to release it unofficially later this year, but according to Graslu, it no longer matters to Graslu, and even here, those interested must remain patient. “I must not release this version myself, I do not want to take this risk,” Graslu00 denies any speculation and avoids them further in the comments. He also mentions that the rights owners – MGM and EON Productions – can step in and stop the spread of the game, but still sees Graslu00 as obliged to release at least a video.
As for the shots, the game, of course, has looked through a lot compared to the original version from 1997, the faces and effects look much more detailed, which are complemented by the original music and composition of the missions. In addition, Remaster had to offer the ability to switch between new and original graphics, so players could carefully examine individual scenes and compare them with each other. But it never happened, and as you probably understand, the reason was the license. Although Microsoft has reached an agreement with Activision, the then owner of the game rights to games from the world of James Bond, and Nintendo, as the publisher of the original game, the headquarters of the Japanese company canceled the release just a few months before completion. Phil Spencer, for example, later commented on the rights, essentially repeating words about the complexity and ambiguity of former Rare CTO Nick Burton after the game was canceled. In 2015, the head of Microsoft’s gaming division essentially ruled out the possibility that the game could be released in remastered form on the Xbox, referring only to the spiritual successor Perfect Dark, which is still available in backward compatibility mode today.
