N64’s GoldenEye Multiplayer Was Made in Only 3 Months (and in Secret)

A new interview with Rare developers has just revealed that N64’s GoldenEye 007 multiplayer mode was created in just three months. Incredibly, the iconic Nintendo James Bond mode also had to be made in secret.

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N64 GoldenEye Multiplayer Was Made in Just 3 Months

Screenshot: Nintendo, Rare

If you are a child from the 90s, then you likely spent countless hours playing N64’s GoldenEye multiplayer. However, did you know that the iconic 1997 co-op mode was actually created in just three months and was kept secret from its own publisher?

In a recent MinnMax interview, Rare developers David Doak and programmer Steve Ellis revealed new details about the classic game for the very first time. “It was May 1997 when work on the multiplayer started and the game came out in August. It was originally a completely single-player only game. The code didn’t have a concept of what a player was.”

Screenshot: Nintendo, Rare

Surprisingly, Steve Ellis then revealed that the groundbreaking GoldenEye multiplayer mode was actually created by the team in secret. In fact, it wasn’t until Nintendo got to play it, that it became a guaranteed feature in the game.

GoldenEye 007 Multiplayer Was Originally Made in Secret

Screenshot: Nintendo, Rare

“The mode wasn’t coming down from higher-ups. They didn’t even know it was happening. The team leader asked me to look into it. That’s what I did for a while. At some point Nintendo was coming to visit and we showed it to Ken Lobb.”

According to Ellis, Nintendo’s Ken Lobb loved the mode so much, that he wanted to surprise Nintendo by showing it off to them in a secret build. “There was this funny thing where Ken asked us to hide it in a build so that he could be the one to reveal it to the people over in America.”

Nintendo Rentals Helped Make GoldenEye 007 Multiplayer a Massive Hit

Screenshot: Nintendo, Rare

In the interview, Rare programmer Steve Ellis then revealed that Nintendo’s strategy of pushing GoldenEye 007 into rental stores such as Blockbuster played a pivotal role in its success. This particularly allowed families to try out the multiplayer mode, before getting hooked.

“Ken Lobb saw the potential. When GoldenEye shipped he put a lot of cartridges into rental. And that paid off massive dividends because people would rent it, take it home, and then be like ‘I need to buy this now. If I take it back, the drug will be gone.’”

Screenshot: Nintendo, Blockbuster Video

As a side note, this is exactly how I bought GoldenEye 007 in 1997. After renting it at Blockbuster Videos, I begged my parents to buy it for me as I couldn’t stop playing multiplayer with friends. Interestingly, the GoldenEye multiplayer was so popular with Rare that team members were even creating ROMs just to play it while still working on the game.

Rare Staff Were Making GoldenEye ROMs Just to Play at Lunch

“One of the things we saw internally at Rare is that there was a black market for ROMs so that people could play it at lunchtime. So that showed that there was interest. And we were getting really good feedback from Nintendo of America. We were getting good feedback from QA. People were wanting to come in and put in some overtime on the weekend doing extra testing and stuff.”

Now that’s how you know when you’ve got a hit, when employees actually want to work weekends! As a child of the 90s, I totally get it though. The N64 GoldenEye 007 multiplayer completely had a hold on me for years. It wasn’t until 1999’s Super Smash Bros. that the kids in my neighborhood finally switched to something else.

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