Rare visited the GoldenEye set for reference, and Eon Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) allowed them to expand the game with sequences and characters not featured in the film.

GoldenEye 007 is a first-person shooter in which the player takes the role of Secret Intelligence Service agent James Bond through a series of levels.

[6] The Klobb, a submachine gun with a folding stock, possesses a high rate of fire and a wide bullet spread compared to other weapons, but is severely underpowered with a heavy recoil.

[9] The player may also replay previously completed levels within target times to unlock bonus cheat options such as infinite ammunition or invincibility.

This space-based weapon works by firing a concentrated electromagnetic pulse (EMP) at any Earth target to disable any electrical circuit within range.

[10] In 1995, Bond visits Monte Carlo to investigate the frigate La Fayette, where he rescues several hostages and plants a tracker bug on the Pirate helicopter before it is stolen by the Janus crime syndicate.

Bond is then sent a second time to Severnaya, but during the mission, he is captured and locked up in the bunker's cells along with Natalya Simonova, a captive computer programmer unwilling to work with Janus.

There, Bond destroys its weaponry stores and then hitches a ride on Trevelyan's ex-Soviet missile train, where he kills Ourumov and rescues Natalya.

[10] GoldenEye 007 was developed by the British studio Rare and directed by Martin Hollis, who had previously worked as a second programmer on the coin-op version of Killer Instinct.

[16] Due to the success of Rare's 1994 game Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007 was originally suggested as a 2D platformer for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

[16] He created a document with design ideas, including gadgets, weapons, characters, story digression from the film, and artificial intelligence (AI) that would react to the player.

[16] Features such as gun reloading, position-dependent hit reaction animations, penalties for killing innocent characters, and the aiming system that is activated with the R button of the Nintendo 64 controller were adopted from Virtua Cop.

[20] The team considered implementing both on-rails and free-roaming modes because they did not know how the Nintendo 64 controller would work,[16] and the game's gas plant location was modelled with a predetermined path in mind.

[16] Although Ellis assisted the development team in many areas and programmed the cheat options, he was mostly responsible for implementing the multiplayer mode,[20] which was added roughly six months before release.

[24] Actors who portrayed Bond in previous films were playable during development, but were removed because Rare was unable to get Sean Connery's permission to use his likeness.

This helped the developers significantly, as some backgrounds rendered at 2 frames per second on the Onyx without even drawing enemies, objects, or Bond's gun.

As a result, the team toned down the killing and added an end credits sequence that introduces all the non-player characters, giving the game a filmic sense.

[18] Despite low expectations among the gaming media and an unsuccessful showing at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Atlanta in 1997,[16][36] GoldenEye 007 received widespread acclaim from critics and was a commercial success.

[30] The zoomable sniper rifle was praised as one of the most impressive and entertaining features,[30][31][42] with Edge describing it as a "novel twist"[3] and Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot noting its ability to alleviate the distance fog.

[2] Similarly, Greg Sewart of Gaming Age remarked that players have "a bit of freedom as to what they want to do in any given situation, and what order the directives are completed in".

[30][35][3][2][33][41] The controls were praised for being more intuitive than Acclaim's earlier well-received Nintendo 64 first-person shooter Turok: Dinosaur Hunter,[2][43] though some found the cursor targeting difficult to master.

[53] Alongside Shiny Entertainment's 1997 third-person shooter MDK, GoldenEye 007 has been credited with pioneering and popularising the now-standard inclusion of scoped sniper rifles in video games.

[42] The game's mission design, enemy AI, and stealth gameplay influenced contemporary titles such as Half-Life,[54] Thief: The Dark Project,[55] Syphon Filter,[56] and Deus Ex.

10 on their list of Top 50 Games of All Time, commenting, "Marrying Doom-style shooting with trademark Bond missions, GoldenEye is the perfect thinking-man's shooter.

[72] In a retrospective analysis, Nintendo Life editor Mark Reece gave GoldenEye 007 eight out of ten, stating that although the multiplayer mode stands up well, its graphics, audio and "fiddly" aiming system are dated.

[7][77][78][79][80] In a contemporaneous review, Edge remarked that the ability to dual-wield the Klobb is one of the most satisfying moments, and argued that it is likely to be remembered by players unlike the vast majority of video game weapons.

[87] Though it reportedly needed only two more months of development before it was finished, the remaster was cancelled because Nintendo, MGM, and Microsoft, which acquired Rare in 2002, were unable to come to a licensing agreement.

[89][90] In January 2021, a full playthrough of a prototype of the XBLA version was streamed to YouTube, showcasing improved graphics running at 60 frames per second.

These games contain several references to GoldenEye 007, including the design of the health-HUD, the nature of the aiming system, and the Russian dam setting of the opening level of TimeSplitters 2.

The remake features Daniel Craig as the playable character, contemporary first-person shooter conventions, new level layouts, and online multiplayer.