GoldenEye 007 Is the Worst Thing to Ever Happen to James Bond Games

I know how this sounds, but bear with me: GoldenEye 007, sometimes referred to as GoldenEye 64, has done more harm than good to the James Bond brand in gaming. The 1997 classic is often hailed as one of the best games on the Nintendo 64 and one of Rare’s all-time bangers, and while I won’t debate the quality of the game itself, I will argue that it set Mr. Bond on the wrong path in gaming.

It may look archaic by modern standards, but GoldenEye 007 was a revelation when it first launched. Inspired by MS-DOS games like Doom and Quake, GoldenEye took the burgeoning FPS genre in a new, more grounded direction. It’s a loose adaptation of the Pierce Brosnan Bond film of the same name, and as such, it features more dynamic, narrative-driven gameplay, as opposed to something like Doom, which is highly stylized and almost solely action-oriented. Multiplayer was a huge boon for GoldenEye as well, as it helped it retain a more dedicated, long-lasting following for years after its release. All in all, it’s generally considered one of the best, most influential shooters of all time. But if you look at its legacy and impact with respect to Bond games specifically, the damage it’s done becomes clear.

For the record, GoldenEye 007 was far from the first James Bond video game adaptation: it was preceded by at least 10 other games, most of them direct adaptations of the movies or Ian Fleming’s novels.

007 First Light Dev on Comparisons: ‘We Can’t Simply Reskin a Hitman Game and Call It Bond’

IO Interactive comments on the speculation over whether 007 First Light, the studio’s next release, is just a reskin of its past Hitman games.

GoldenEye 007 Locked James Bond Into the FPS Genre for Years

As Bond fans know all too well, IO Interactive’s 007 First Light will be the first new James Bond game since 2012’s 007 Legends, which capped off a prolific run of Bond games post-GoldenEye. Here’s a quick look at all the James Bond games released after GoldenEye, but before First Light:

James Bond 007
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World Is Not Enough
007 Racing
The World Is Not Enough (GameBoy Color)
James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire
James Bond 007: Nightfire
James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing
James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing (Game Boy Advance)
GoldenEye: Rogue Agent
From Russia With Love
Quantum of Solace
GoldenEye 007 (2010)
James Bond 007: Blood Stone
007 Legends

It’s interesting that there was such a deluge of Bond games following GoldenEye, and that the train stopped so definitively and abruptly with 2012’s 007 Legends. Looking a bit closer at these releases, though, it’s not exactly surprising: most of them were either critically panned or saw a middling reception. Having played a handful of them myself, I would posit that the diminishing returns post-GoldenEye can be attributed to repeatedly reaching into the same proverbial bucket: the aforementioned console games are almost all shooters, usually FPS’s like GoldenEye, albeit with some cursory additions like third-person setpieces.

Click or tap on the games that match the category

This all came to a head with the triple-whammy that was GoldenEye 007 (2010), James Bond 007: Blood Stone, and 007 Legends, all of which are typical of the most boring trends of the 7th console generation. They are bland cover shooters with some on-rails action setpieces thrown in for good measure, but without the expressive gameplay of the best shooters from that era (e.g. Halo Reach, Max Payne 3, BioShock 2). This depressing lack of ingenuity is perhaps most evident in the 2010 “reimagining” of GoldenEye 007, which is both visually and mechanically derivative of Call of Duty to a detrimental extent, lacking the charm and creative flair of the original GoldenEye.

James Bond aiming his pistol in James Bond 007: Blood Stone

The title of this reimagining indicates that there was some desire for continuity stemming from the Nintendo 64 GoldenEye game. In other words, you can trace a clear path from the first GoldenEye 007 to the misguided 2010 remake and the terribly boring 007 Legends, a path paved with intentions to keep the series as a shooter first and foremost. Over time, this made James Bond video games creatively bankrupt, playing second fiddle to other, more boundary-pushing FPS games and cover shooters.

Guess the games from the emojis.

Easy (120s)Medium (90s)Hard (60s)

GoldenEye 007 Might Have Locked James Bond Into the Movie Adaptation Route

One of the most compelling, fundamental elements of 007 First Light is that it’s not an adaptation of any existing Bond property, in contrast to most of its predecessors. Even Bond games that aren’t literal adaptations usually take the form of a “lost entry” in a given Bond film iteration. For example, James Bond 007: Blood Stone and James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing follow Daniel Craig’s and Pierce Brosnan’s James Bonds, respectively, and also adopt the same tone and style of those films. In other words, Bond games have historically been tethered to the movies, which may have resulted in, or at least exacerbated, certain creative restrictions.

Granted, licensed movie video games were all the rage in the 2000s; this was far from a Bond-specific issue. But nevertheless, the success of the Nintendo 64 GoldenEye game probably strengthened the belief that adapting Bond films for games was the right move. However, like the aforementioned adherence to FPS convention, this meant tunnel vision for the Bond IP in gaming, hog-tying it to audience expectation and mainstream tropes.

Hopefully, 007 First Light will be proof positive of what a James Bond game can be when it takes a more original, creatively risky path. Not only will First Light offer an all-new Bond origin story, but it will also position the character in an experience specifically designed to be a stealth-espionage adventure, rather than trying to squeeze James Bond into the events of a single film or the conventions of a genre that it’s outgrown.