Rare’s Goldeneye is one of the most memorable experiences of the Nintendo 64. While some may not gel with the game’s unique gameplay format in 2026, the first-person shooter is still heralded by many as the peak of James Bond in video game form, even with the brilliant recent addition of IO Interactive’s 007 First Light.
Goldeneye 007 on Nintendo 64 is so iconic that TV shows have based entire episodes around it and new games are still trying to replicate its unique feel. For composer and developer Grant Kirkhope, the sheer popularity of the game is still a shock.
Speaking in the latest episode of our podcast series, releasing later today, Kirkhope explained that “no one” knew Goldeneye would be popular, let alone the runaway success it became. For many, the first-person shooter is the foundational game of the Nintendo 64, a level of fame Rare never expected.
“There was likely 12 people on the team, and none of us had made a game before,” Kirkhope recalled of Goldeneye’s development. “None of us had. No one had any idea what they were doing. SO you just muddled through thinking, ‘I think that’s a good idea, do you?’ ‘Yeah, let’s do that.’”
Goldeneye’s development started as an on-rails shooter with Kirkhope recalling the team wanted to make the James Bond version of Virtua Cop. As the game continued development, the team shifted to a full 3D experience, but even then the game was extremely rough around the edges.
“It was buggy and messy and, I remember, the last E3 where it finally got unveiled, I remember Martin Hollis was in a meeting with Nintendo and had a massive list of bugs that was like: not been fixed, not been fixed, not been fixed, not been fixed,” Kirkhope said. “[He was like] ‘we’re not fixing any of these. This is it.’ And [we] expected it to be a complete disaster.”
For Kirkhope, the true popularity of Goldeneye didn’t hit until long after its release, although they noticed its bizarre sales trajectory. “Goldeneye’s got that strange statistic where the second year sold more than the first year, and the third year sold more than the past two years combined. That’s unheard of in games,” he said.
“I was like a kid in a sweet shop because I still am a huge Bond fan, I’ve been a huge Bond fan all my life.”
Goldeneye 007 composer Grant Kirkhope
After leaving Rare in 2008, the composer moved to America where they still reside to this day. Only then did they realise just how big Goldeneye was as a global phenomenon. “It became the kind of American college dorm game,” he said. “I don’t think I realised how big Goldeneye really was until I got here. The amount of copies sold versus the amount of people who played it, I dread to think. It was 10 million sold, probably 100 million people, probably more, that played the game. Because 4 players, one bought it and four people played it. It was just this gigantic behemoth.”
Despite how iconic Goldeneye became, Rare didn’t want to create another James Bond game. MGM gave Rare the opportunity, even inviting the team to the filming of Tomorrow Never Dies, but the studio already knew that another Bond game simply wasn’t in the cards, instead taking the knowledge they learnt from that game to make their own original IP in Perfect Dark.
“We went down to see the filming of that one, it was cool to meet them all, see that and go around the museum and all that s**t. It was great.” Kirkhope said. “But we even knew then we weren’t going to do it.” Kirkhope recalled that the revenue split for Goldeneye wasn’t great which made the game profitable for MGM, but not so much for Rare.
Nevertheless, working with Bond and especially with the musical flourishes of Bond was a dream come true for Kirkhope. “We had the rights to the Monty Norman main theme tune. That was all we had,” he recalled. “I was like a kid in a sweet shop because I still am a huge Bond fan, I’ve been a huge Bond fan all my life. So to get that as my first game writing the actual music was amazing. So I just got to play with that iconic theme. I mean, to get to play with that theme tune, which is known by a bazillion people all over the world, that’s just amazing.”
Kirkhope explained that the Nintendo 64’s limited memory and the lack of an MP3 player, which the team wouldn’t have until Conker’s Bad Fur Day, meant that they were extremely limited in what they could construct versus the potential of CD audio on the rival PlayStation. The opening electric guitar rendition of the iconic Bond theme was “as big as we could have possibly gotten”, the composer recalled.
Now, almost 30 years since the game’s release, there’s still a fervour for the specific stylings of Goldeneye 007. It’s a cultural touchstone more than it is a video game, and thankfully it can be played today on multiple platforms. While it may not be the best game ever, the James Bond title certainly has had an impact like few other games ever have.
