A remake of the classic Nintendo 64 GoldenEye 007 leaked online and can be played on the PC using an emulator, Video Games Chronicle reports. The game, which was originally intended for the Xbox 360 Live Arcade service, includes the original single player campaign, as well as local split-screen multiplayer, but the online multiplayer and leaderboards are absent. The entire package has received a graphic overhaul, but players can return to the original graphics at the touch of a button.
The remake was never released, after it was canceled in 2008, when it was almost ready. According to a 1 up at the time that has now been corroborated by VGC, the issue boiled down to the large number of game rights holders. This included not only Nintendo (publisher of the original N64) and Microsoft (owner of Rare, the original developer of the game), but also Bond license holders, Eon Productions, as well as actors whose similarities appeared in the game.
Images of the remake have appeared before, including a two-hour video game that appeared last month, but now the single player campaign and the local multiplayer game can be played by anyone who can find a copy of the ROM on sharing sites files and set up an Xbox 360 emulator (apparently, Xenia is the way to go). But if that sounds like a lot of effort, then this live broadcast from Digital Foundry offers a great overview of the remastering’s content:
Although it is specific GoldenEye 007 remaster has never been released, there are a number of other related projects that have seen the light of day over the years. While the complexities of the Bond license may have prevented Rare from redoing GoldenEye, this was eventually able to launch a remake of his spiritual successor, Perfect Dark, on Xbox Live Arcade in 2010. Perfect Dark it was a style of play similar to GoldenEye, and ran on an updated version of its engine, but it was based on an original IP.
Meanwhile, a GoldenEye 007 The remake was eventually developed by Activision (which held the rights to develop and publish Bond games between 2006 and 2013) and released for the Wii in 2010 (it was transferred to Xbox 360 and PS3 the following year). This remake was generally well received, but had little to do with the original N64. At the time, many commented that it looked more like a Call of Duty game that also became based on the 1995 Bond film, rather than a remake of the 1997 game.
Outside of official projects, there have also been a number of remake attempts made by fans of GoldenEye 007 over the years. GoldenEye: Source was a multiplayer remake of the original game made on Valve’s Source engine (available for download here), while GoldenEye 25 it was an attempt to rebuild the original game’s campaign on Unreal Engine 4, which ended last year.