A remaster of the game that has been in legal limbo for decades may indeed be coming soon. As the original was one of the standout Nintendo 64 titles (especially with friends), Microsoft could be pulling a decent rabbit out of its hat.

Writing for VentureBeat, Jeff Grubb on GrubbSnax has said that a GoldenEye 007 HD remaster could be announced in the next few weeks. It won’t be confirmed by Nintendo, the original publisher (Rare was still around the big N at the time, as the Redmond-based company wasn’t in the console market yet), but rather Microsoft, and he says the release is not more than a few weeks away.

2022 is the 60th anniversary of James Bond. If MGM, Nintendo and Microsoft can sort out the legal wrangling, a new version of GoldenEye 007 could be a worthy celebration of the round number, as there was a hint of earlier this year. Here’s what we wrote on January 1: “The TrueAchievements website is dedicated to, you guessed it, achievements. Xbox achievements can be viewed on the site. But the trick is that GoldenEye 007 also has a page like this. This game doesn’t exist on the Redmond company’s consoles, so Microsoft is likely planning a port of Rare’s internal-view shooter.

GoldenEye 007 is stuck on Nintendo’s two-and-a-half-decade-old cassette-using platform because of a legal Gordian knot between Rare, Nintendo, and MGM, which owns the James Bond IP. (And it could get even more complicated, as Amazon made a takeover offer to MGM in May. This could even interfere with Project 007 at IO Interactive.) A Nintendo Wii remake was released, but it wasn’t the original. An Xbox Live Arcade port was leaked last year, but that was also an older project.”

Last year, it was confirmed that Microsoft had to sadly shelve its planned remaster of GoldenEye 007 for Xbox 360 because of miscommunication between licensees, licensing issues, and a possible rush to complete the work by a team of younger developers because there was no agreement yet to remaster the game. A playable but not final build was leaked in early 2021.

VGC interviewed the directors of the remaster. Chris Tilston said, “It’s kind of bittersweet. It means people get to see the work that was done, but it also masks some of the cockups that went on behind the scenes.” Co-director Mark Edmonds added, “The thing that I find strangest is, why now? Why leak it after all this time? Someone must have had this for all those years. It just seems strange to me. When I first heard about it, it almost made me think, is Microsoft leaking it on purpose for some reason? (Laughs) I don’t think that would make sense, but it does make you wonder.”

Maybe we are finally getting a new edition of GoldenEye 007 and not a remake. It’s about time. However, which platforms would get it…?

Source: VGC