GoldenEye 007 (1997 Video Game) - Successors

Successors

GoldenEye 007 led Rare to begin development of a spiritual successor titled Perfect Dark, also for the Nintendo 64. Using a modified version of the GoldenEye 007 game engine, Perfect Dark made its debut at E3 1998, and was released in 2000 to critical acclaim. Although the game features a setting and storyline unrelated to James Bond, it shares many gameplay features with GoldenEye 007, including a similar control scheme, mission objectives that vary with the difficulty setting, and cheat options unlockable through quick level completions. The game led to the development of the Perfect Dark franchise.

A number of the GoldenEye 007 team left Rare soon after development on Perfect Dark commenced, beginning with Martin Hollis in 1998, who after working on the GameCube at Nintendo of America formed his own company Zoonami in 2000. Other members formed Free Radical Design, and by 2004, four of the team of nine who originally worked on GoldenEye 007 were employed there. Free Radical Design developed the TimeSplitters series of first-person shooters for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Xbox. These games contain several references to GoldenEye 007, including the design of the health-HUD, the nature of the aiming system, and the dam setting of the opening level of TimeSplitters 2.

Meanwhile, the James Bond game license was acquired by Electronic Arts in 1999, which published new games based upon the then-recent James Bond films, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough, as well as entirely original ones, including 007: Nightfire, 007: Everything or Nothing and GoldenEye: Rogue Agent. However, none of them reached the critical or commercial success of GoldenEye 007. In 2006, the James Bond game license was acquired by Activision, which published additional games in the James Bond video game series, such as 007: Quantum of Solace, James Bond 007: Blood Stone, and a reimagining of the Nintendo 64 game, also titled GoldenEye 007. The reimagining features Daniel Craig as the playable character, modern FPS conventions, entirely new level-layouts, and an online component. It was exclusively released for the Wii and Nintendo DS in 2010 to generally positive reviews, and later re-released as GoldenEye 007: Reloaded for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 the following year.

An Xbox Live Arcade port of GoldenEye 007 was in development at Rare for several months, and in 2006 Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime commented that Nintendo was "exploring all the rights issues" involved in bringing GoldenEye 007 to the Wii Virtual Console. However, due to legal issues involving the numerous licence holders with rights to game and to the Bond IP, the game was ultimately not released on either format.