For a videogame based on a movie based on a series of books by Ian Fleming, GoldenEye has made quite the cultural impression. Released for the Nintendo 64 all the way back in 1997, it stands out as one of the most recognisable and important first-person shooters of the ‘90s.
After the sun set on the N64, there wasn’t a way to play the game anymore. GoldenEye became nostalgia fuel for the N64 generation in the same way that PC players look back on the likes of Doom, with console gamers the world over reminiscing of the days they used to play it with friends and family. Although there was an official remake released on the Wii in 2010, some thought it was more of an update – it even replaced Pierce Brosnan with Daniel Craig.
However, instead of reminiscing, Bond fans – including those of us on PC – may soon get to die another day in GoldenEye 25, a proper remake in Unreal Engine 4 that’s currently in the works. We’ve been talking to lead developer Ben Colclough about how the project is going, its challenges, and why now is the right time to bring the game back.
Perhaps the best place to start is GoldenEye: Source, a well-known multiplayer remake of GoldenEye on which Colclough was lead level designer until 2016. In fact, he talks to the rest of the team often and “they’ve been very helpful and supportive” of GoldenEye 25.
You may wonder what the difference is between what Source and GoldenEye 25 are each trying to achieve when it comes to a remake, and the answer is all about single-player versus multiplayer. “Source has only ever been a multiplayer game,” Colclough explains. “Although there were discussions in the early 2010s about possibly also doing single-player, those never came to fruition. GoldenEye 25 will finally bring a remake of GoldenEye’s single-player to the public.”
GoldenEye Source’s development had its issues, too. The version of Valve’s Source Engine that the modders had access to was from 2007, and it was “frustratingly antiquated,” in Colclough’s words. Just some of its inconveniences included limited and buggy material customisation, the singular use of dynamic lighting on a level, conversion of textures to Valve’s specific proprietary file format (.vtf), and poor outdoor level optimisation.
Unreal was the solution. “Unreal Engine 4 solves all these problems and more,” says Colclough. “There’s a lot of great free learning material online which helped my transition from Source to Unreal. It also helps that Unreal is free – something important for a fan project with almost no budget.”
The biggest technical issue that the team has faced so far has been integrating WWise (an Audiokinetic software). “That’s mostly just because I had little experience with audio going into GoldenEye 25. Eventually, I did figure out the basics so that the awesome dynamic soundtrack made by Yannick Zenhäusern could be added to GE25!” Zenhäusern is the team member behind the soundtrack. If you want to hear his music, here is his YouTube channel.
On the gameplay side, Colclough explains that it’s the input that is most likely to divide fans. “Some people want to play GoldenEye 25 with mouse and keyboard, some with the N64 controller, and yet others with modern controllers.” Only natural considering that GoldenEye was originally designed for the N64. “Unreal’s support for generic USB controllers makes it possible to have N64 controller support. And the UE4 input system allows me to map buttons from different devices onto the same action, saving a lot of time and redundant coding.”
As for what those buttons actually do in controlling Bond, Colclough and his team had to strike a balance between authenticity to the original game, which has a number of quirks that are alien to modern sensibilities and accommodating exactly those sensibilities. “It was a challenge to replicate behaviours of the original GoldenEye which we don’t often see in modern shooters,” Colclough says. “For example, running forwards and strafing sideways at the same time gives you a roughly 40% speed boost. UE4 gives us enough control over character movement to let us have that ‘strafe running’ mechanic.”
On the other hand, despite his love of the original game, Colclough knows that shooter design has come a long way in 23 years. “The default controls are largely updated to match modern gaming, but there will be various options to make the controls more like the original for those who prefer it.”
So why now? Why is now the right time to bring the game back? There have been attempts in the past to relive the original 1997 release, without much success after all. “This remake stems from a love of GoldenEye but also disappointment that a proper remake of the single-player portion has yet to be made,” Colclough explains. “Around 2007-8 Rare tried to do a port/remaster of GoldenEye to the Xbox 360, but that was never released for legal reasons. In 2010 we got the Wii remake, but a lot of us hardcore fans were unimpressed.
“Aside from the plot, names, and a few weapons, the Wii game has little in common with the original GoldenEye. A lot of us prefer to think of the 2010 game as a ‘reimagining’ rather than a proper remake. And finally, because of legal reasons, there is little chance we will ever see an official GoldenEye remake. Either fans do a remake or we’ll never see one.”
Despite the nods to modern shooter design in controls and input, Colclough has felt little need to revise the levels themselves – perhaps because changing them would far more obviously affect the feel of the original than a little touch-up to the controls, but also perhaps because the levels still hold up. “The levels typically don’t have to be changed very much to work. The biggest change is that guards can now see over railings – they couldn’t in the original – so sometimes level designs are tweaked to account for that.”
And if you were a fan of the original, don’t worry – GoldenEye 25 will be keeping cheats. Actually, Colclough is adding even more: “We intend to keep all the cheats that could be unlocked in the original game. We also intend to add new ones such as “infinite ammo’ and ‘no reloads’.”
And no, Colclough confirms to us that “Daniel Craig will not be in this remake”. Maybe it’s his dodgy knee, or perhaps he’s just too busy with his upcoming film.
GoldenEye 25 is an ongoing project, hopefully set to release in August 2022. Unreal Engine 4 development is now free.
In this sponsored series, we’re looking at how game developers are taking advantage of Unreal Engine 4 to create a new generation of PC games. With thanks to Epic Games and the GoldenEye 25 team.
