Goldeneye 007 is out for Series X/S and Switch – but how do the ports compare to the N64 version?

Since its original release on Nintendo 64, GoldenEye 007 has become an almost mythical game, the subject of countless stories about its four-player split-screen deathmatches or objective-driven single-player missions. That mythos has led to remasters and re-releases over the years, but the recent releases for Xbox consoles and Nintendo Switch still came as a shock.

While their arrival is certainly a cause for celebration, it didn’t take long before the complaints started rolling in too – over the quality of the emulation, the controls and even the music. Given the response, I had to find out just what exactly is going on with these re-releases and that’s what we’re here to do today.

Despite its impact, GoldenEye’s never had a perfect remaster. The closest we got was an Xbox 360 title that featured a ton of promise – updated visuals with a toggle for the original look, 60fps gameplay, perfect image quality and smooth controls – but it all fell apart at the last minute and was only leaked in playable form in 2021. The game changed the face of FPS and defined the N64, but for a long time it seemed like rights issues would prevent any remaster from coming to market, despite the efforts of countless developers pitching reboot plans.

But in 2023, against all odds, we got not one remaster but two – for Nintendo Switch and Xbox consoles, including Series X/S. Both are based on emulation; on Switch using iQue’s emulator designed for Switch Online while on Xbox using an updated emulation layer based on the work done for Rare Replay. Each release uses its own modified ROM; on the Xbox side all traces of anything Nintendo were removed and hacks were added to improve the controls, while on Switch the focus was removing unusued textures of Roger Moore, Sean Connery and Timothy Dalton – presumably to ensure a watertight legal defence against any rights issues.