Nintendo confirmed that GoldenEye 007 was coming to the Switch during the September 2022 Direct, which was then followed by an announcement stating it was headed to Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, too. And now after a long wait, Xbox and Nintendo have finally announced its release date: January 27.
GoldenEye is releasing as a part of Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack. This version will have online multiplayer in addition to widescreen support, as shown in the trailer Nintendo put out.
And even though they are slated for the same day, the Xbox versions are a bit different. It only supports offline split-screen multiplayer, so those who want to play online are out of luck. It is coming to Xbox Game Pass, though, and will support alternate control options and achievements and run at 4K at a native 16:9 resolution. Those who own a digital copy of 2015’s Rare Replay, a compilation full of the team’s games, will also get GoldenEye 007 for free.
Rare originally created GoldenEye 007 and released it in 1997, which was only five years before Microsoft purchased the studio. Eurocom reimagined the shooter in 2010 for the Wii and then released an enhanced port for the PS3 and Xbox 360 a year later. A remaster of the N64 game was supposed to come out in 2007 on Xbox Live Arcade, but was canned. Footage of the unreleased title later leaked online in 2021, which was a fair bit before an achievement list hit the Xbox servers. This port has also allegedly been a long time coming, as evidenced by Head of Xbox Phil Spencer’s recent tweet about this trailer.
