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(intense music)

(electronic music)

- [Presenter] Final Fantasy VII.

- [Presenter] GoldenEye 007.

- We were all really

I think we were all
kind of at that stage

in our lives where we were
really hungry to do something.

- We were young and naive.

- Young and inexperienced,

and had no idea what
they were doing.

- I wanted to show people
that I could do this.

- It was our first game,

I don't think we knew
quite what we had.

- [Presenter] It's
a great lineup.

- [Presenter] The interactive
title of the year.

(upbeat music)

- It was a movie license

done by a small team
of inexperienced

developers and
somehow ended up being

the greatest first-person
shooter of its era.

- [Jimmy Fallon] This is
one of the best video games

of all time.

- You couldn't ask for a
better cocktail recipe.

- Here's your spy playground.

- The guns, the
gadgets, the cars,

the girls, the memorable
villains, amazing exotic settings.

- One of the most important
video games yet made,

had a transformative
effect on the industry.

You can look at the video
game landscape today

and trace back its
origins in GoldenEye.

- GoldenEye is one of
those wonderful games

that almost splits the game
industry into two times.

There's before GoldenEye
and there's after GoldenEye.

- Halo, Call of Duty,
Medal of Honor, Battlefield,

all of that goes
back to GoldenEye.

First-person shooters were
really this PC elite genre.

3D gaming was really coming to

the fore for the first time.

The social element,
the friendship element,

the skill and personal
achievement, right?

It's one package that
sums up all the reasons

I play and want to make games.

- [Narrator] Ah, the
1990s, a time of innocence,

optimism, and social
cohesion, and Spice Girls.

There were no mobile
phones, no social media,

the internet was but
a whisper on the wind

and TV consisted
entirely of the same

old channels we'd
had for decades.

The video games industry
was still young,

widely considered to be
the realm of children

and toy makers, but
it was changing fast

as game makers were still
discovering what games could be.

Many video games have graced
our screens over the years,

few are played decades later,

even fewer change
the way we play.

This is the story of a
game that did just that.

(intense music)

- [Narrator] Rare was
founded in the 1980s

by brothers Tim
and Chris Stamper.

The Stamper brothers
began their journey

developing a series
of acclaimed titles

for the ZX Spectrum
and built themselves

quite a reputation for
innovative high quality games.

In 1985, their
work caught the eye

of Japanese gaming
giant Nintendo.

In fact, Nintendo loved
what they saw so much,

they invested in the
fledgling outfit,

taking a 49% shareholding
in the company.

This relationship would
go down as one of the most

fruitful collaborations
in video game history.

Together, they would
go on to create

some of the most beloved
video games of the nineties.

- [James Batchelor] What's
amazing is that Rare

is this just, really...

at the time, it was this
really reclusive developer.

They didn't tell you anything.

They were very kind of secret,

and so secret that not
many people knew where they

were based,
and they were based on

what used to be a
farm in the Midlands.

- [Mick Gordon] Middle
of England, a barn,

groups of people that
had really not done

a lot of video game stuff
before, were killing it.

- [Grant Kirkhope]
Twycross is absolutely,

there's nothing in it.

Twycross is a village that
contains, it's got one pub.

It's got a private school.

A bit further up the road
there's Twycross zoo

which is quite famous,
but that is it.

- [Krishan Sharma] You have
this extremely talented

cutting edge

game development studio out in
the middle of nowhere, right?

In countryside in England.

- [Mick Gordon] I mean over
that period of what, six years,

they'd done some of the
best 2D platformers,

some of the best 3D platformers,

one of the best fighting games,

one of the best racing games,

and certainly one of the
best first-person shooters.

- [Grant Kirkhope] People
underestimate the influence

of Tim Stamper
and Chris Stamper.

They were just absolutely
always in complete sync.

There was never a
point in time where

those two guys didn't
agree on something.

There was always
absolute solidarity

and they knew exactly
what they wanted.

There was never a time you
could say, we're not sure.

Tim would always
know how it needs to be

for that to be fantastic.

- [James Batchelor] The whole point
of Rare was to do things differently,

to not just make the same games

that have come before,
but it works for them.

They're kind of
isolated a little bit

in that they're on this
kind of farm style campus.

They've got different barns,

so different buildings
where the different teams

make different games
and they are

just in this little Rare world.

- [James Miskell] You know,
when you buy a Nintendo game,

it would have the
Nintendo seal of quality?

To me, the Rare logo, back then,

was the Nintendo
seal of quality.

You knew you were
getting an amazing game.

- [Grant Kirkhope] You used to
always want to make the fact

that the Rare logo
should sell the game

without even knowing
about the review.

You see that blue R on
that game box, you buy it.

- They just didn't
make bad games.

- Rare was a very sort of
clandestine place in some respects

nobody ever did interviews,

no one knew what we were up to
until the game came out.

No one had any idea
because Tim and Chris

weren't interested in fame,

we just work on the games,
we focus on the games,

make them the best they can be,

we put them out and
they do the talking.

- [Martin Watts] Rare
was a very important

and iconic developer

back during the
nineties, you know.

It really pushed the boundaries,

not just with the N64.

So, they developed
Donkey Kong Country.

That was a game which used
pre-rendered 3D graphics.

And for it to be on that console

at that time, it looked amazing.

- [David Craddock] They were
able to render these gorgeous

3D models and then
make them 2D sprites,

but they maintained almost
the same level of graphical

fidelity as their original
source models had.

It just made the
Super Nintendo look

like it could be the
next generation console.

It wasn't old. It was new again.

- [Mick Gordon] It was evident
back in Donkey Kong Country

where they were using
3D development stuff

in a 2D environment to give
the illusion of a 3D world.

Nobody was doing that at all.

- [Peer Schneider] So
in the late nineties

we saw a lot of innovation
around how games are played,

how games control, how
camera systems work,

how progression in levels
work, all of that stuff.

It was kind of this
Wild West of developers

trying a whole bunch
of different things.

And then, you know, over time,

certain things stuck around,
certain things went away.

- [Graeme Mason] The PC
market was absolutely booming

thanks to the advent
of 3D graphics cards.

- [Ad Narrator] Welcome
to the world of Doom.

A hellish nightmare
for the more real...

- Because the PC was the home
of the first-person shooter.

- [Tommy Thompson] We didn't
call them first-person shooters.

We called them Doom clones

because everyone made games
that were kind of like Doom.

- [Joao Diniz Sanches]
First-person shooters,

let's remember at the
time, weren't a thing,

they weren't a genre.

They were just shooters
in a 3D environment.

- [Peer Schneider] The landscape
for first-person shooters

was pretty young back then.

It was more about monster
closets, fast paced shooting,

you know, skill-based gameplay,

but not really campaign-based

storytelling and puzzle solving.

- [Dan Ryckert] For me,
FPS was just id games.

It was Wolfenstein and Doom
because that's all I knew.

- [Tommy Thompson] And then
moving into Quake and Unreal

around the same
era as one another.

- [Joao Diniz Sanchez]
You had kind of, you know

violent games beginning
to kind of become popular.

And so you needed the
consoles to match that.

- I'd seen really rad, awesome
3D stuff in the arcades

playing all sorts of video games
like Virtua Cop and things.

But the concept of
having three-dimensional

first-person shooter game
at home was revolutionary.

- This transition from Mega
Drive and Super Nintendo

to the PlayStation or
even the Sega Saturn

adapting to these new
forms is introducing

all these new
challenges and problems.

- You'd seen some
experimentations with 3D

on the Super Nintendo, things
like Star Fox and F-Zero

and Pilotwings, and it
was sort of fake 3D.

It wasn't really good 3D.

- Most interesting is how
the different developers

kind of used this newfound power

of using the third dimension,

like how they would use it
to create new experiences.

- It's also around
this sort of time

that you had Tomb Raider.

Tomb Raider was made in Britain.
You had Grand Theft Auto.

Grand Theft Auto was
made in Scotland.

There were a lot of
very kind of ambitious

creative UK developers
trying to push the bounds

of this new 3D world and
what we could do with it,

and they were having
worldwide hits.

- [Karl Hilton] I'd been to
lots of interviews in London.

It was like, great, London.

Then I ended up in a
farmhouse in Warwickshire

it was quite bizarre.

- [Brett Jones] The
actual layout was you have

the big farmhouse itself

which was sorting out all
the minutia of the day.

You know, making sure
the company works

and all that sort of stuff.

And then there were
literally barns

where they used to
keep the horses.

And these had been
turned into offices

and each team was
in one of the barns

and where the horse
sort of stalls where

they'd been turned into
our individual offices.

- [Steve Ellis] They
were each big enough for

two or three people.

When I started, I
had one to myself,

which was right
next to the crèche.

So I got to hear kids
playing all day.

- [Brett Jones] Of course
there was no internet,

so it was like get on with this,

you're in your computer
now, get on with it.

But it was really nice, that
barn sort of feel to it.

- [David Doak] That was
very much how Rare worked.

It was kind of everyone
was in their little silo

and there was a Donkey Kong barn,

and there was a barn that
ended up where Banjo was.

There was the Killer block,
people making Killer Instinct.

- [Steve Ellis] I was
22 when I joined Rare.

I think the others were
mostly about the same

or a little bit older.

Well, I was straight out of uni,

so I'd never worked on an actual

game that had been released.

- [Karl Hilton] 24 and no
experience at all in making games.

Rare was my first job
out of the university, so.

- [David Doak]
I was a scientist.

So I was at Oxford University
and I'd done my degree and PhD

and I worked in molecular
structure determination.

- [Duncan Botwood] So I
was about 23, I guess.

I had not got a
degree at that point.

I'd dropped out of architecture.

- [Grant Kirkhope]
For someone like me,

I really genuinely thought I'd
just end up like a tramp.

I did the university thing,
messed around in bands

for years and years
to get to 33,

so 11 years as a long time
just living at home with my mother.

I don't know, I would've
just been a pub rocker

making 30 quid a night
probably to this day.

- [Graeme Norgate] So when I
joined Rare, I would have been,

I'd just turned 23 and all
my experience up to that point

was playing games and wanting
to do music for games.

- As well as the
artists and programmers,

they wanted a
system administrator

to go and run their
Silicon Graphics network.

And at the time I was running
a Silicon Graphics network

as part of my job in the lab.
And I'd had a bad day...

I kinda thought, well, yeah,
screw it. I'll apply for this.

- This was my first job.
It was a good job.

I was earning more money
than I ever had done before.

And I was getting to
work on James Bond.

- The name's Bond, James Bond.

- A new project had
come in from Nintendo.

They've got the
rights to GoldenEye.

(upbeat music)

And they'd come
to Rare and said,

would you lead a new team
to make this GoldenEye game?

- [David Craddock] The
offer for a movie game,

a movie tie-in game,
came up to Rare.

It was kind of the last
thing anyone wanted to do.

- They didn't really
like making adult games.

They wanted to make broad
appeal family games.

So GoldenEye was a little bit
out of the ordinary for them.

- Martin Hollis was
the guy who stepped up

and said, okay, I'll do this.
This could be kind of fun.

And everyone else was
like, great, cool.

We want to keep
making our own games.

- [Narrator] Martin Hollis,
a young, ambitious

university graduate from the
south of England

had only been with
Rare a short time

before the opportunity to
make GoldenEye came up.

His total experience
working in games

was a brief stint
working on a coin-op

conversion of Killer
Instinct, and that was it.

He was, however, a
massive Bond fan,

as evidenced by this homage to

the infamous Bond
gun barrel sequence

he made with his
brothers as a young lad,

shown here at a GDC
2012 GoldenEye talk.

But making a game
about Bond

would be a much larger challenge.

Hollis would have to build a
team and a game from scratch.

Martin's first
recruit to the team

was programming
prodigy, Mark Edmonds.

A man of few words,
Mark was in charge

of the core engine
and AI systems.

Joining him was
architecture graduate

turned lead artist, Karl Hilton,

and populating Karl's environments
with character models

and animations was Brett Jones.

Duncan Botwood came
aboard next as a designer

to work on level progression
and mission structures,

programmer Steve Ellis
was brought in

to code the weapons
and explosion effects,

and David Doak joined to
help craft the missions,

storylines, and objectives.

But what of GoldenEye's
signature soundscape?

Well, that came courtesy
of Graeme Norgate

and Grant Kirkhope,
with the dynamic duo

providing the music
and sound effects.

And last but not
least, Adrian Smith

was the final piece
of the puzzle,

joining the team to help
with effects and UI.

- The level of
ambivalence in terms of

the studio that's
managing that project,

the publisher that's
funding the project,

the license holder who
also has a lot of say

in what that game
should be...

James Bond is one of the
biggest IPs in pop culture

and everyone's like,
ah, they'll make it.

- Yeah, Martin Hollis came
in one day, didn't know him.

Then Martin said, "I've been
offered you for my new team."

I'm like, oh great, what is it?

He said, "Well, do you
like James Bond movies?"

And at the time I was
thinking, you know,

I love James Bond movies.

I'm thinking, but video game
James Bond movies?

- [Simon Parkin] In the late
nineties, every major film

that came along had to have a
licensed video game attached.

And this was not because
Hollywood, you know,

particularly valued or respected
the video game industry.

It was like, this is a
really useful marketing tool.

- Nobody believed that a
GoldenEye game would work.

Licensed tie-in games at
the time were like a toy.

You know, you had
the baseball cap,

you had the lunchbox, and
you had the video game.

- [Peer Schneider] Movie
license games often failed

because the game play
wasn't good. Right?

They were cranked out
to just kind of hit

a deadline and kind of resemble

the franchises that
were so popular.

- We all got Bond.

There wasn't some style
sheet that we needed to read.

- We were James Bond fans.

We all wanted to be James
Bond. That was the whole point.

- And I was able to
rattle off a load

of kind of Bond ideas because
I'd read all the books

and obviously seen all
the films and so on.

So I wouldn't stop talking
for about half an hour

about all the things
we could do with it.

- I was a big Bond fan. So
I watched all the Bonds.

- When the movies came out,

they were the biggest
movie of the year, always.

The best effects,
the best music,

everything was
spectacular in Bond films.

So you always knew

you're in for a great ride
on a Bond movie.

In the first few days,

I do remember sitting
down and talking about

what kind of a
game it should be.

I used to love playing
Spy Hunter in the arcades.

Maybe it's a sort of
Spy Hunter, sort of,

top-down driving game.

- [Graeme Mason] They wanted to do
something for the Super Nintendo,

the SNES, I assume
it would have been vastly

different given the different
powers of the two machines,

probably a 2D platformer.

- Everyone was working on
Super Nintendo at the time.

And Martin had said
to them, I will do it,

but he wanted to work
on the new console

that was coming along.

- Martin had the
vision, you know,

he was the only guy that had
actually done a game before.

So he was the one powering
through this and saying,

you know, I think
we'd like to do this.

I think we'd like to do that.

- Especially in
those early phases,

it's Mark Edmonds
and Martin Hollis.

But Mark was the engineer.

Mark essentially
built the core engine

and an awful lot of
the subsequent tools

that were available to
the rest of the team

to start building
all the level designs

and create all these really
fun, unique experiences.

- Of course you
have to remember,

first-person shooters got off
to a much slower start on consoles.

Yes, there were ports of
games like Wolfenstein 3D

and Doom on earlier systems
like the Super Nintendo,

and the 32X, but technically
they were really ugly

and kind of just stumbled
compared to the PC counterparts.

- At the time, people are like,

a shooter won't work on
consoles because you need a PC.

You need mouse control
because it's more accurate

or you need a keyboard
because you've

got so many different buttons,
so many different options.

- They were much better
suited, that sort of game,

to the PC because you
can use the mouse to aim.

You can use the keyboard
to move your character.

You can map different
keys to different actions.

On a video game
console controller,

you're much more limited
in what you can do.

- At some point, details
about the Ultra 64.

They were boasting about
all this new power

that this console would have.

And at some point
Martin got a brain storm

and decided that actually

this sort of game
would work in 3D.

- We all knew it was
coming. No one had seen it.

No one knew much
about it but we knew

it was going to be a 3D console.

- With the early
through mid-nineties,

you're going through this
massive technological upheaval,

like consoles are
adapting and being built

and being released
like really frequently

and really quickly, the
hardware is changing,

and in turn the software
that we have to build

for it is changing as well.

At this transition
from 2D into 3D gaming,

we don't really know
what's the standard

by which we're going
to build 3D games.

- Because the 3D
thing was a new thing,

there wasn't a body of
people with those experiences

or those skills,
so you're almost

kind of taking a punt on people.

So like Karl, for instance,
Karl Hilton

was an architecture
graduate, you know,

and, yeah, he'd done a
bit of messing around

doing 3D modeling, but not much.

- The developers are...

relatively new
to this experience.

Many of them had never
shipped a game before

and given a tremendous
amount of freedom

to experiment and
play around with ideas

and throwing things in ad hoc
to see whether it sticks.

- And then we also were
talking about different

shooters, particularly
the Virtua Cop games.

- Originally it was supposed
to be an on-rails game.

The feel of that
is quite different.

- So you would go through
each level at the same pace,

kind of almost Star Fox
style or Time Crisis,

that sort of thing, and it
would be the same each time.

And you just have to kind of
improve your score each time.

- You didn't have
control over movement,

but you could aim
just in some of

the classic kind of
arcade on-rails shooters.

- And they put everything in
to make it play like Virtua Cop,

and then everyone was
playing it and going

it's not any fun.

It looks like Virtua Cop,
it moves like Virtua Cop,

it's got the Bond,
but it's not fun.

- GoldenEye was
one of those games that

kept on getting
delayed and obviously

missed the release of the movie,

and even the home video release.

- It has the markings of
like a small indie outfit now

who's got far more
resource and budget

than anyone would
potentially imagine

with no constraint on,

right, you've got to ship
this in six months.

It's, we'll keep paying the bills,

but could you try
and ship something?

- Nintendo is not like many
other video game companies

in that, you know,
it was able to say

it cares most, first and
foremost about the quality

of the games that
appear on its hardware.

So it's less about we need
to hit this release date

so that we maximize
our profits

because we're tying in with
the film's release.

It's more like, no,
we're gonna wait on this

until it's right, until
it's ready, until it's good.

- Now there was concerns that
it wasn't a very Nintendo-ish

product, it was quite,
we got told

repeatedly it was too
dark and it was violent.

To which our response was, well,

it's dark because the
film's dark and it's violent

because it's James Bond
and he kills people.

- There's a very
well-known story now

that Martin Hollis tells about

late into the game's
development receiving a fax

from Shigeru Miyamoto,
who is still the most

famous video game
designer in the world.

And certainly was at that time.

Sort of giving us
feedback on GoldenEye,

and he says he doesn't
like the violence.

He says it sort of feels tragic,

and is there no way that
at the end of the game,

you as Agent 007 can
visit the hospital ward

where all of the people
that you've taken down

during the course of the
game are sort of holed up

and can you not
work your way down

the beds shaking
everyone's hands?

It's obviously a very funny
story, but it also illustrates,

I think, something
about Nintendo

and Miyamoto's approach
to video game design,

and probably their
nervousness about a game

like GoldenEye appearing
on their flagship hardware.

At one point they were
even saying, well,

we're not sure about this.
Maybe we just cancel it.

And because they'd
rather lose that money

and preserve their reputation
as a fantastic

video game publisher
than they would to

recoup some of that money

and put something else
out that's substandard.

- [Narrator] So let's do
a quick summary. Shall we?

We have an inexperienced
ragtag group

of university graduates
working in a barn

somewhere in the
English countryside

on a game
based off a movie,

a game about a spy
with a license to kill,

to be played on a console
that didn't exist yet

for the company that brought you

Princess Peach and
Zelda. Get all that?

- It's the N64! Oh my God!

- This holiday season,
it's the new Nintendo 64.

So what's the big deal,

and why is Toys "R"
Us already sold out?

- [David Doak] When we all
got our production N64s

and everyone had Mario,
and Pilotwings and stuff,

but particularly Mario,

literally people were
sitting in offices

watching other
people play Mario,

and everyone was going...

You know, jaw drop.

From the moment you
pick up that game,

it just says, go, explore.

- It was symbolic of
the time that, you know,

you had this new level
of freedom, you know,

afforded by games like
GoldenEye 007,

and Super Mario 64, and
Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

You know, there was,
I think, an emphasis

from a gameplay
perspective to get

the players to go
off and explore.

I remember the first time
seeing Super Mario 64,

and it was really the first
time I'd seen a 3D game

and it was like the
world had changed.

And we're right on
this tipping era

that we'll never see
again in the same way

of moving from two dimensions
to three dimensions,

which was such a
tremendous shift

in the way that not only games
would be made,

but also thought
about, but also played.

- That just blew people's minds.

You can wander around doing stuff
that you'd never been able

to do before, exploring
the game in a way

that you'd never been able to.

- I had that curiosity,
I was just like,

oh, what's that over there?

N64 games and
GoldenEye specifically,

which led me to be the
games tester that I am now.

You know, that curiosity,
I was just like,

let's zoom into that
with a sniper rifle.

There's a thing over there.
How do we get over there?

Don't know, we'll find out.

And then you go to Facility
and you poke around

all the corners and
you see some flasks

and a vent and you're like,
who put flasks up there?

- It just had this go
anywhere, do anything,

kind of flavor to it even though

it's not really an
open world game.

A lot of the levels
kind of feel like you

can kind of go
everywhere, go anywhere,

and just play around with it.

And so it was just
such an open feeling.

- Before GoldenEye, most
first-person shooters

operated with the
Doom clone mentality.

Shoot everything that
moves, collect the keys,

go through the doors, find
the exit, rinse and repeat.

GoldenEye, depending on the
difficulty you selected,

would give you
different objectives.

It's not just A to B.

Some of them are A
to B, but it's A to B

via objectives C, D, and E.

Here's a level,
this is what you need

to do in the level
before you leave.

- Doom had it to a point
and Quake had it to a point

where there's keycards, right?

Blue, the gold, the red, but
it was kind of rudimentary,

'cause it was early
nineties gaming, you know?

GoldenEye come out,
and it was just like,

no, we have to talk to
this character over here.

That's never happened to
me before in a video game,

in terms of FPS, I have
to then look at my watch

to get something,
throw it at a thing,

it was doing so many things
new and fresh at the time,

but looking back like
it completely rewrote

the rules for video games,
FPS and otherwise.

(intense music)

- It wasn't until,
I would say, 1997,

kind of the year that
first-person shooters

exploded on the Nintendo 64,

when you had this perfect
union of a controller

that was up to the
job of playing FPS

and hardware that was
up to the job of running

and displaying
FPS that the genre

really took off on consoles.

- Within the year of
GoldenEye coming out in 1997,

there was Doom 64, which
isn't a port of Doom,

it's a completely
separate Doom game

that was made with id
Software's blessing,

Hexen 64, which is a
direct port of the game,

but also, Turok:
Dinosaur Hunter.

- It was very impressive
from a lot of standpoints,

very complex worlds were built.

The characters were
not sprites anymore.

They were fully 3D again

and had pretty intricate
animations.

- When you see something like that
and you look at your own work,

and all you can see are the
things that are wrong with it.

You know, you're
thinking, oh God,

we're miles behind on this.

I remember being really worried
because it had very nice

looking art and it
ran really smoothly.

It had really good frame rate
because they had the fog

a lot of the time
and these dinosaurs

would run out of the fog at you
at a really nice frame rate.

You'd be like, oh, that's nice.

We did look at
that and think, oh,

do we need to go back
and try and get the game

to run faster, is there
anything else I can do?

Should we be turning off the
Z buffer and things like that?

Yeah, it was a real
benchmark for us.

- [Duncan Botwood] So I started
building the dam

without any real
technical knowledge

and I was playing around with
the size of it and we realized

we could take the movies
as a source for sure.

And we also look at the set
models and the set diagrams

that they'd drawn out,
that they built.

- And he just built the dam

and then we put it in
and it's like, woah!

- We ended up with this real
sprawling mass of a level

that was running at an
abysmally low frame rate.

- So then that's why you have
the tunnels leading up to it,

was to try and cut as much
of the views off as possible.

You know, and then I went
through and basically hacked

as many polys out as I could.

There'd be a big thing

that Martin put up
which would show you

the frame rate
you currently had.

So I could spin around and
look at what he was doing.

And then suddenly the framerate
would drop horrendously.

It's like, right,
what's over there?

Okay. Go in, hack around.

- [Duncan Botwood] That was
a kind of awakening for me.

Like, oh yeah, it's got
to run. Oh, okay.

- The engine was great
because I could sit there

on my machine
and play with stuff

and then immediately
make the level,

put it in the game, and
then try it out again.

So I could just
go through this process

of just hacking away at this.

So you start off with
levels that look fantastic.

And by the time I'd
finished with them,

they were sort of a bare bones.

- And we got to go
to Leavesden Studios,

where they were
filming GoldenEye.

And we had a day's visit there.

And because I had
this very rare thing

called the digital
camera at the time,

which was this massive,
massive, heavy camera.

My job was to go round
and film and, you know,

try and get reference
for everything.

And we saw St. Petersburg
where they had the tank chase

and that was all still up.

And then inside one of the
actual studios was the huge,

you know, the villain's
lair set at the end.

And we saw that while it was
in its pristine condition.

Then we went back
the second time

we saw it in its
blown up condition.

- Martin was very
pragmatic about stuff.

It's like, you go off and
make what you want to make.

And then we'll look
at it and work out

how we're going
to get it to work.

It was all very,
very co-operative.

It was never like,
this is what you do.

This is how you do it.
Don't break these rules.

It was much more, what
kind of things do you need?

- [David Doak] A good
example is the frigate.

That's in it because in the film

there's a helicopter is
on a frigate in Monaco.

So Karl had built the frigate
and we had

a helicopter model
and that was it.

So it was like, well, okay,

so what are you going
to do in that level?

Maybe you're trying
to rescue hostages.

Well, that sounds
like it might work.

Okay. Well, let's
roll with that.

- Someone would come back
in and go actually, Mark,

what would also be
great, can we do this?

Can we have them like dodge roll

or hide behind
cover, like, okay.

That's not in there now, and
then a couple of days later,

boom, it appears in the source.

- [Adrian Smith] I was then
doing a lot of the gun modeling.

So I was working in
conjunction with Mark Edmonds,

not only to get
the front end in,

'cause I had to
model all the hands.

It was myself and Mark
that came up with the HUD,

and I should have
trademarked that

because the HUD was
pretty much then the go-to

front end for any
of the consoles.

- It was always, what can
we do? What can we create?

What sort of things can
we do? How do we do it?

- Creates this kind of
crazy cycle of iteration,

everything that Mark
Edmonds was doing

and building, that code base,

but also allowing the
designers that kind of level

of flexibility to just
create whatever they wanted.

He was working really
hard in this whole backend

that was reduced
into byte code

that was really performant
and ran super quick

on what was ultimately very
limited hardware on the N64.

- [Narrator] Under the
watchful eye of the Stampers,

the team would work
long days and weekends

polishing and refining the
gameplay levels and difficulty.

They would even bring in elements
of the extended James Bond

universe to create a game
overflowing with content

and creativity, but
would it pay off?

(upbeat music)

- [Grant Kirkhope] These days,
you can load up a synth patch

put your finger on a
keyboard and it's this

huge, great, swathe of sound
that's just incredible.

It's just amazing, but
we couldn't do that then.

Most of the sounds in
GoldenEye are probably

16 or 11 kilohertz, right
down at the bottom end.

Like bass drums, you
put them in at eight, you know.

So, you know, it's a quarter

of the quality that
you would get on a CD.

- The gas plant music
is a particular one.

You know, that opening
kind of, "doo, doo".

When I hear that, I still get
a bit goosepimply about it.

The music and the soundscape
and the pacing itself

it's like, now you're Bond.

- It's what I love, I think,
is it sounds like a score.

Every song feels like it's come

from the same soundtrack.
It feels cohesive.

And that's very difficult to do.

Their ability to carve a theme

and create an emotion

and a feeling that
instantly linked you

to whatever your goal was,
whatever your mission was,

but also whatever
the environment was,

whether it's a
snowy sort of area

or a sneaky area
through a facility.

- GoldenEye, I think,
is an excellent example

of having a believable
world that you can explore

and you add kind of, you know,

atmospheric music and then
you've got action, et cetera.

You begin to build the
sense of a narrative-led

first-person
shooting experience,

which obviously we have,
you know, everywhere now.

- Their ability to
use nothing more

than a limited sound palette
and a series of notes

is what makes that
a great score.

A lot of thought had
gone into creating,

again, a believable
aural landscape.

- With Graeme Norgate
doing the sound design,

the gun sounds in
that game are really,

really good for their time.

That soundscape was crafted with

just absolute love and respect.

- [Graeme Norgate] It's a
luxury of being in-house.

We could play the game,
so you'd load up Servenya,

walk through it, play it, and
you'd get the idea for it.

And you could write something
and have that playing

whilst you're playing
the level again,

and, you know, iterate.

- That's another person
who is a talented person

at the height of their skills,

trying to do
something really well.

And then it all came together.

- [Steve Ellis] When
I joined the project

they weren't any effects really,

so I think the first thing that
I worked on was explosions.

- Everything explodes.
It's ridiculous.

- Yeah, everything did
explode if you shot it

long enough, I think,
pretty much.

- But it's part of the world.

It's like you're in this
world and there's this

kind of brittle
consequence for things

and this escalating calamity
if you do something wrong

and this explodes,
this explodes,

then this scientist
gets blown across the room.

- [Steve Ellis] Yeah. I
spent ages working on that.

I think it was more than
a month on the explosions.

Effects are always one
of the most expensive things.

They can have quite a large
impact on the frame rate

of the game, the responsiveness.

- That sense of immersion
and impact on the game world

is another thing
that's going to keep

bringing players
back to keep playing

because it's a space
that they can control

in more of a way than they
could with things like Doom.

- It's not in Doom, there's
not that collateral damage.

And the idea that the environment
is mutable in some way.

It was something that was
really important to us.

- [Duncan Botwood]
The job I was not expecting

when I answered an advertisement
for a game designer

and document writer was to
be stuffed into a sweaty

neoprene suit and asked
to fall over. But...

(rhythmic grunting noises)

(screaming)

One day, I was asked to put
on a sweaty neoprene suit

that'd been used for Killer
Instinct and to fall over a lot.

- [Brett Jones] I would
have Mr. Botwood there,

all covered in the markers,

and then depending on how he was

going to get killed
at that point,

he would either have
a rope around him

and I'd yank him or
he would get pushed

or he would get
kicked in the knee.

You know when you see those guys,
they get shot in the shoulder

and you see them do that?

That's me literally going
like that and pushing him

on the shoulder until he moves

because you can't
anticipate because

otherwise there's
that (deep breath).

He was battered, he
was really battered.

(laughing)

(rhythmic grunting noises)

- [Steve Ellis] I remember one
time Tim Stamper got the team

into a conference room
and explained to them

that it's not a university
project and it does

need to be finished
at some point.

- [Graeme Norgate] Regardless
of the game being late

and missing deadline
after deadline, you know,

it wasn't because we
were putting our feet up.

- I believe they were
all in their late twenties

or early thirties.
Most of them were single.

They could work 100 hour weeks.

You know, whether
we think that's good

or not with hindsight,
that was something

that they wanted to
do and did willingly.

And we were the
beneficiaries of that toil.

- It was like a
company culture of,

you don't just go home at
five o'clock, that's for sure.

- We used to work late at Rare.

We used to like being there.

- Right from the start, we'd
be there till midnight

and working weekends and stuff.

- You didn't have to stay,

but it was kind of
assumed that you would.

So most of the time we did.

- [David Doak] We thought
the game was going to be

really bad.

So that was always the thing.

It's like, A, there's
not enough variety.

It's going to be boring. It's
just running and shooting.

And also we're not going to
get all the levels finished.

- It was hugely late, and it
was massively full of bugs.

There was just so many
things wrong with it

that it sort of became that game

that we all thought would never
actually come out in the end.

- Hi, I'm Ken Lobb.

I'm here to tell you about
the Nintendo 64 hardware.

- [Karl Hilton] Ken Lobb
was a big fan of the game.

I mean, we had a lot of support,
particularly from America.

- And here we have
the controller ports.

I'd like you to notice that
we have one, two, three, four.

- [Peer Schnieder]
Nintendo 64 shipped with

four controller ports, right?

And Mario Kart 64 obviously
demonstrated to the world

how to properly use
those four ports.

- You know, from
the very offset,

the machine comes
with four players.

Now you still have to buy
two other controllers,

but not if your mates bring
them around with them, right?

So as a developer, you're
then beginning to think,

let's try and use it, perhaps
there is something in here.

- That was a big departure
from having to configure

your LAN and having multiple
copies of every game

and playing across all
these different monitors.

- [Steve Ellis] I'm gonna say
roundabout April or May, '97,

we started work on it.
Seems insanely close.

- [Duncan Botwood] In the
meantime, Nintendo of America

are going, you are
finishing the game, right?

You're not trying to put multiplayer
in or anything are you?

No, no, no we're not. No.

It's fine. Yeah, we're
finishing the game.

- [David Doak] There was no
way Martin going to be able

to go to management
and say, you know what?

We'd really like to
put multiplayer in.

'Cause just like no, you're
failing to do the thing

you're supposed to be doing,

don't be asking for more time.

I just remember the day
we showed it to Ken

because Ken would come
over every kind of,

couple of months,
something, to Rare.

I remember him coming
over and we'd set up.

It was in the office where
Steve and Duncan were

we had TV and we had with
the four controllers sitting.

So that was the thing.
So he came in,

I just remember,
walked in with Ken,

Ken, we've got something
to show you.

And he's like, wow!

Ken was always...
He used to say,

Oh my God, you guys!
It's like, yeah, it works.

- And he was so
excited by it

that he wanted to be the
one who revealed it

to the testers at Nintendo.

- So Treehouse is NoA's,
Nintendo of America's,

testing and kind of like
game evaluation department,

which Ken Lobb was
heavily involved in,

and we started to get
feedback from them,

which was, you know,
people are coming in

and playing at the weekend.

It's like, you know,
everyone wants

to be testing your game,
all that kind of stuff.

Going to E3 was kind of
seen as a break for us

because we were close
to gold

and there was a big testing push
while we were there.

- When we were at E3,
we had the smallest stand

because nobody
really knew what we were doing,

but it was played all the time.

- [Karl Hilton] We had a
playable version on the floor

and the booths were
absolutely rammed.

I remember watching
everyone playing it

and just really enjoying it.

So you thought, okay,
well this is good.

- But it was being
played all the time.

The entire time, you
know, you were there,

you could just see
people playing GoldenEye.

It was busy, really busy
the whole time.

- [Narrator] Bolstered
by the positive feedback

from E3 and testing,
the team

head into the final stretch
with their spirits high.

All their hard work
and dedication

appeared to be paying off,

but just as the game
was about to be shipped,

an order came through
from mission headquarters.

- Yes. I made Timothy Dalton,
Roger Moore, and Sean Connery.

And I made them all particularly

because I gave them all
different types of jackets.

So one of them
had a white one on,

one had a little red carnation.

One of them had the
double breasted suit.

So yeah, I have
pictures of them all

because I definitely made them.

- Got a fax I think it was
in those days,

saying you can't have
the other Bonds in it.

We don't have the rights.

- There is one cartridge
with all four Bonds in.

And I think I know who
has it at the moment,

but we had to take them out
because Sean Connery

wouldn't let us
use his likeness.

- [Narrator] In a somewhat
ceremonial goodbye,

the team played one
final death match.

Doak, Hollis,
Edmonds, and Hilton

took part in a three-hour
marathon session

to decide who was the
ultimate James Bond.

- So we thought, well, we
need to have a final game.

So we all sat around one
evening and played it,

and yeah, I can't
remember who won.

It wouldn't have been me,

but I usually played Roger
Moore 'cause he was my favorite.

- [David Doak] When
we were making it,

we were just trying
to get it finished.

That was an overarching memory

of particularly the
last year was just,

can we just please
get it finished?

Because it's just
taking forever.

- You get to the end of
the game and you are blind

to what's good about it
and all you can see

is all the things that
were on your wishlist

that you haven't
had the time to do.

So you kind of only
see its flaws.

- You see all the things
that are wrong with it.

We knew the frame rate
was awful in places,

there were loads
of art that I did

that we didn't manage to get in.

There were game ideas
that we didn't get in.

It was late and we knew the
film had long since gone.

So, you know, whether
anyone was going

to be remotely interested
in it when it came out,

I had no idea at all.

- [Narrator] After working
some utterly back-breaking hours,

the game was finally
deemed finished

and sent to the distributors.

GoldenEye 007 released on
the 25th of August, 1997.

- [Simon Parkin] GoldenEye
was not a smash hit on day one

like in the way that the
really big games are today.

- [Radio voice] GoldenEye 007 not
only defined a generation,

but defied all expectation.

- [Brett Jones] It
was more word of mouth

and sort of a snowball effect.

- [Martin Watts] When it did
finally release and everyone

started playing it and people
start playing the multiplayer,

there was a real buzz around it.

People were talking
about, you know,

people talking about it at
the playground, at work.

- You like shoot
people in the head

when they're having a shit in
the toilet in the air vent,

and I'm just like, this
sounds interesting.

- Shooting that dude
who was on the toilet

and just being like,
oh, you poor bastard.

I felt so bad for him.

- Straight away you were
there. You were James Bond.

You were playing
James Bond, and that was it.

- Definitely the first time
just sticking the cartridge in,

turning it on, and it
was that audio cue. Shoo!

And then you knew
your life was different.

- When I got that
cartridge finally at home,

literally I played
throughout the night.

- My friend and I rented it
like that first weekend

it was out and it
was just all we did.

- I just spent the whole
weekend playing GoldenEye.

- There was only one
copy of GoldenEye

left in the Toys "R" Us
shelves in Chatswood,

and I remember I
bought the game first

because I didn't want anyone
else to have that game.

- There'd be four of us playing.

There would be four behind
the couch waiting to play.

There would be three more making
sandwiches in the kitchen.

There'd be another two
turning up after school.

That's what we did,
we played GoldenEye

for two years straight.

- Here is your spy playground.

- You felt like
you were somewhere

and you were actually
going towards something,

and, you know, working towards

a proper goal in a real place.

- I remember the
sense of wonder.

Just walking through
the dam for the first time

and sort of feeling
the big open spaces

that actually felt
like big open spaces.

- That's the freedom that
keeps you coming back.

- So glad they had
the vision to go,

what if we just took
James Bond off the rails

and give the player the ability

to run around and
do what they want?

- You know, running
into this gate

and going like, where do I
go, pulling out your gun,

shooting the lock, it just
blew our minds at the time.

- If you played it
like you played Doom,

you'd fail the mission.

You had to use your brain,

and I think that's
what helped it spread.

- It was the game
everyone wanted to play.

Growing up as a
PlayStation player,

and my friends who had 64s,

we were just filled
with jealousy

that we could not play a
game that was that good.

- I don't think I really
appreciated at the time

just how much enthusiasm
that the game,

you know, the game generated.

- I think the enemies really
brought that game to life.

- You'd occasionally
walk around a corner

and just find one scratching
their bum or something like that.

Really, really bizarre.

But that little
detail made a change.

- Everyone says it, but
the animations like, ah,

you shot him in the hand,
he's shaking it around.

You shoot him in the knee
or the bum cheek

and he clenches it?
Brilliant, like number one.

Then you shoot the
hats off and you think,

what else can this game do?

- You could use your
silencer and take out

enemies without
alerting other guards.

You could take out
the security cameras.

These stealth mechanics
really hadn't been seen,

especially in the first-person shooter genre.

- Guards were on routes
and everything,

and you could memorize them,

and you'd know when you
would see their head pop up

like over a snow dune and
when you could shoot him,

like I felt like
I was being sneaky

for the first time in a game.

- Some of the greatest
memories I have

is getting through that
level in a certain time limit

and doing certain conditions
to unlock certain things.

The feeling of achieving
that was great.

- If you wanted to
extend the life

of the game as a player,

you earn that
extension rather than

buying it and
downloading it, right?

And it was always in there.

- I got every
single one of them,

except Facility,

which was just so difficult.

- You have to have Dr. Doak

in the right place
at the right time.

- You are having the
run of your life,

but you could never
bank on Dr. Doak

being in the right spot.

It was just the biggest bunch
of bullshit of all time.

- The way you shoot him and
then feel slightly bad about it,

but it's fun and you can get
away with it, so why not?

- I think there's a
certain magic that happens

that GoldenEye taught all of us,

that sitting shoulder to shoulder
with somebody on a couch,

even if we're on
two separate TVs,

playing something,
getting the reaction,

feeling the energy, right,
is a magical moment.

- All you needed
was one Nintendo 64,

one copy of the game, four
controllers, and a TV.

The idea that you could
all play on one screen,

all four of you
racing down corridors,

sniping each other,
laughing your heads off.

It was as much fun
for an audience

as it was for the players. It
was just hysterical to watch.

- GoldenEye came out
and it brought everyone

out of their rooms,
out of their bedrooms,

into the lounge room
together, you know,

shoulder to shoulder,
having a great time.

- It was some of the
best times of my life,

you know, just with my friends.

- What was great was
it was so customizable.

- Custom matches and
the one-shot kills,

Man with the Golden Gun,
Slappers Only.

- You'd go to play GoldenEye
at a friend's house

and you'd choose Oddjob and
everyone would (deep breath)

and the guy in the
corner of the room

would stop playing the piano
and everything like that.

It was just not done.

- He'd be the smallest one.

And you'd fight to play Oddjob.

- Anyone who chose
Oddjob was the biggest

asshole in the lounge room.

- It just made it all the more
fun, all the more social.

And it kind of made me
look forward

to actually hanging
out with my family,

which I don't do so much now.

- Gaming really is
inherently social.

The first games that were
commercial were in arcades

where you'd have to go out
and be among other people.

Sometimes your friends,

sometimes you'd meet
complete strangers.

And it kind of recreated
that arcade feeling

of standing behind the
players at the controls,

putting your quarter on the
dash, and saying, I got next.

- After GoldenEye,
every FPS that came out,

people were asking what
kind of multiplayer modes,

how are you handling
split-screen, how does it run?

- GoldenEye became
the game that set

the gold standard for
first-person shooters on console.

It was the template
that the genre

would follow on
consoles going forward.

- [Presenter] The
interactive title of the year...

is GoldenEye.

(audience cheers)

- [Brett Jones] Getting
a BAFTA was awesome.

Yeah, especially because it was

at the interactive Oscars,

Martin had to go up
and give a speech

and thank everybody for
working on the team.

And he mentioned all the
team members by name,

and then he paused and he went...

- And Duncan Botwood.

(laughter)

- Because he'd forgotten him.
That was a good moment.

- [Steve Ellis] So the whole
team was there

and it was the first time
they ran those awards

and we won four of them,
including the top one.

So we were pleased with that.

- We got copies of those.
We've all got copies of those.

We had to pay for them
but we got copies of them

and they say "copy" on the back.

But they are real BAFTAs
and they weigh a ton

and I'm very proud of them,
and they sit in my living room

and they get
polished once a year.

- [David Doak] Looking
back at it, I think there was

a lot of talent on
the team, you know.

It's certainly some
of the most talented

people I've ever worked
with were on that team.

- [Graeme Norgate] I still
don't really, you know,

I don't even believe
it personally.

I just, I still
couldn't do the connect

between what was happening in
the real world, and, you know,

what we'd just spent two
and a half years making.

- And it's still like, wow,
we did a really good job.

We have no idea
what we were doing.

- Obviously like
the critical acclaims

super nice to see.
It was extra special.

My first game,
don't get me wrong,

it's the first box
I had in my hand,

that was like, oh my God,
I'm on this, you know.

But I was slightly detached

I guess towards the end of it.

- GoldenEye kept winning awards,

and at some point it
just, I don't know,

it stopped being a thing
that was very interesting

because it just, yeah, it
just won all the awards.

One thing I do remember
is on the walk back

from the AIS awards in
Atlanta back to the hotel,

I remember saying to the team,

it's all downhill from here.

We're never going to do
anything else this successful.

At that point, we'd
just won everything.

- [Narrator] With the
game on store shelves

and the team taking a
well-earned breather,

the word on the street
was spreading quickly.

GoldenEye was the
new game in town,

an innovative, boundary pushing

cocktail of action-adventure.

The game was a critical darling,

ushering in new levels of
innovation across areas

including visuals,
animation, sound,

storytelling, and
artificial intelligence.

GoldenEye was innovative
in so many ways,

but one of the most
significant was stealth.

Rare replaced the search
and destroy mentality

of the Doom genre with
mission objectives.

From there on in, the
bullet was no longer

the only solution
to every problem.

This freedom of
choice would have

a long lasting impact
on the industry,

challenging our expectations
of what games could be

and paving the way
for a whole new genre

of stealth games
to emerge.

It was official, James Bond
had arrived in video games,

selling 8 million copies,
earning critical acclaim,

and a host of awards.

Turns out, the world of
international espionage

was a perfect formula
for video game success.

The game was so
successful, in fact,

it even surpassed the film.

Together, they would
reignite the Bond franchise

and introduced James Bond
to a whole new generation.

The big question would be,

could future games live up
to the bar set by GoldenEye?

- [Simon Parkin] Steven Spielberg's
son Max was playing

GoldenEye with his friends
one day and Spielberg

walks past and
looks at the telly,

and at that time I think he
was just coming to the end

of his work on
Saving Private Ryan

and can immediately see
the creative synchronicity

or potential between a
video game like GoldenEye

with a view through a
first-person perspective

and a period in history,
such as World War 2,

and immediately from
there sort of asks

the designers at Electronic
Arts to mock up an idea

of how they could
perhaps remodel

the Normandy landings,
I believe, or D-Day,

using first-person
shooter mechanics.

- We all talk about
the flying into the head,

but that's such a subtle
but important design decision

that literally
immerses you in it.

Okay, now you are in
the role of James Bond.

Now you are this character,

and now we're going to send
you through this adventure.

- No one had done
something set in a

realistic world where, there
were real things there,

there were like tanks,
there were jet airplanes,

there were ships,
there were normal guns.

I say normal guns like machine
guns, silenced pistols,

sniper rifles, everything
was recognizable,

including the bad guys,
obviously Russians

a lot of the time.

So all of a sudden
we went from having

all these fantastical elements

to you had actually
a real situation

that you could identify with.

- And that's something that
has definitely, I think,

impacted the single-player
design team on Call of Duty.

We never take you
out of the role

of that person you're playing.

It is a first-person experience.

Every action you do, whether
you're climbing up an ice wall

or whether you're, you know,

in an explosion,
you're shell shocked

and you're watching the events,

you're watching it from
the eyes of that person.

And I think that's
something that GoldenEye

set the standard for

because they knocked it out
of the park and they proved

to us how effective that can be.

- [Peer Schneider] I think after
GoldenEye we saw more games

moving away from hell demons
and dragons

and fantasy

and recreating that kind of
more realistic approach.

Like if you think of the
Tom Clancy's franchise,

I think, you know, GoldenEye
really showed everybody

that you could have, you know,

this kind of real-world
setting with spies,

and, you know,
make it a success.

- Metal Gear Solid was
still like the next year.

And a whole host of stealth
games like Thief and Tenchu.

So they were all, you know,
a year away or so.

- [Tommy Thompson] GoldenEye
and its ability to experiment

becomes a progenitor for games
like Thief: The Dark Project,

where it's entirely
stealth oriented.

- [David Craddock]
GoldenEye was the first

first-person shooter that actually
made PC developers notice

the genre on console
and say, oh,

we need to do
something like this too

or we'll get left behind.

- Half-Life came out
after GoldenEye,

and it was interesting
to hear the developers

of Half-Life speak about how

they were influenced
by GoldenEye.

- [David Craddock] They
delayed Half-Life to make sure

that Half-Life's AI was up
to snuff with GoldenEye's AI.

- One of the things
that GoldenEye

in particular really sells
are moving away,

not just from old light gun
games, like Virtua Cop,

but even established first-person
shooter franchises

like Doom,
is it's the first game

that really embodies
systemic design.

This idea that you
can create a sandbox

which can just be reduced
to outright anarchy,

where scientists are
running away in panic

because you're standing
there with two Klobbs

and shooting just relentlessly

at a couple of soldiers who are
then trying to hit an alarm,

but you've also shot
a barrel which then

causes this cascade
of explosions

throughout this room and then
that's catching scientists

and killing them
or it's blowing up

the guy that you're
trying to hit.

And these are things that
you can't program that.

You can only build the
tools within the world

that enable for these
sorts of things to occur.

And it's crazy because
now so many big games

try and embody systemic design.

That is literally the
blueprint that Far Cry runs on,

that they want to have you
be attacked by a tiger,

but you're also on a paraglider

and then you can drop
down and throw a C4

on a Jeep, which
lands on a civilian.

Like these are the things
that now we're expecting.

People jump into Red
Dead Redemption 2,

and they get really
excited when someone

gets kicked in the
face by a horse.

But GoldenEye, it
was the first time

we ever really saw
something like that.

And then subsequently you
can start manipulating that.

And that becomes
incredibly fun of, well,

what happens if I try
and lure the scientists

in front of me
because they're trying

to run out the back door,

but they are trying
to attack me,

and then can I get them to
shoot the scientists? I wonder.

And then you run off as
your own little research

scientist of your own, you know,

you're putting on
your own white coat,

like, let's see if we
can just cause chaos

and it makes it
insanely replayable.

- You can draw
a direct line, I think,

from GoldenEye to Halo.

- [James Batchelor] I would
argue that Halo: Combat Evolved

wouldn't be what it was if
it weren't for GoldenEye.

I think it followed
kind of the structure of

what GoldenEye was in terms
of these larger open levels,

in terms of this kind of
free flowing 3D movement

and letting you kind of explore

the level at your own
kind of pace.

I think that influenced
things like Halo

and then Halo inspired
Call of Duty and all the others.

It all leads on, it all
influences each other.

- After GoldenEye,
we all thought Rare

would make another Bond game.

I mean, you roll the
credits on GoldenEye,

it says James Bond will return.

And obviously that's
what the movies do,

but we all hoped
that Rare was saying,

hey, we had a blast
making this game.

We're going to give you
another FPS like GoldenEye,

maybe for the next Pierce
Brosnan movie. Didn't happen.

- [Brett Jones] We were going
to do the next Bond license.

That was the plan.
But because GoldenEye

sort of reinvigorated
the franchise,

suddenly the money went up

suddenly it's like,
if you want to do this,

you're gonna have to pay for it.

- The movie license
wasn't that expensive

the first time round,
as I understand it,

Obviously with the
success of GoldenEye,

then the price goes up and
we were told quite early on

that it's unlikely we
would do the next one

because they weren't
going to get the license.

You know, you're
slightly disappointed.

You're also sort of, actually,

probably it's better to
do our own thing now.

- We know how to make
a video game now.

So we're just going
to make a better one.

- It's actually really hard
to do spiritual successors.

To actually encapsulate
or capture

what were the magic qualities
of that particular game.

- [Stuart Ashen] Can you
recreate something like that?

Can you, you know, catch the
lightning in a bottle twice?

It was very much a
product of the time.

- People have tried that,
it's super, super, super, hard.

- [Blaine Morehead] You know,
GoldenEye kind of set up this

expectation, I think,
with audiences that, oh,

these Bond games
are going to be,

or at least should be,
as good as GoldenEye,

like, you know, Rare
set the standard.

And so there was just
this expectation in place.

- After GoldenEye, the
history of Bond games

is very very erratic.

- I didn't quite realize
how big of a deal

it was that Rare lost
the rights to Bond,

in that I heard that Tomorrow
Never Dies was coming out.

- Tomorrow Never Dies had a
tie-in on the PlayStation.

And I think that was PlayStation
hoping that, you know,

well, GoldenEye did
gangbusters for Nintendo,

Tomorrow Never Dies
will do the same for us.

- Sweet, it's the
sequel to GoldenEye.

And I remember getting that
and playing it and being like,

this is not GoldenEye at
all. This is nothing close.

Like I don't know,
they really screwed up.

Like, not knowing that it was
a completely different team,

different everything.

- You're running round levels,

like running around
sets to the film,

but it wasn't quite as
accurate as Rare had managed.

I remember reading reviews
of Tomorrow Never Dies,

and thinking like,
ah, that's too bad.

- You have The World Is
Not Enough afterwards,

which they kind of like, okay,

let's not mess with
the GoldenEye formula.

Clearly James Bond
works in first person.

We'll do another
first-person shooter.

And it was good, but it
was another developer

and it didn't quite have
the same Rare magic.

I think it did feel very
kind of A to B,

very kind of linear.

- I remember
thinking that like, okay,

this has gotta be the
GoldenEye that I wanted.

And it's like, ah,
that's not it either.

And then I found out, oh, okay.

The team that made
that is making this game

called Perfect Dark,

and that's the closest you're
gonna get to GoldenEye.

- [Ad Narrator] Welcome to 2023.

- So Perfect Dark
came along in 2000,

and it was Rare's second
effort in this realm

of first-person shooter and
it was highly anticipated.

Like yeah, I mean, you
did it right the first time.

Let's just do that again.
Just give me more of that.

- A big thing with
Perfect Dark was escaping

what we saw as the confines
of the GoldenEye universe.

- We could
make up the storyline,

we can make up the characters.

We could do whatever the
hell we wanted with it.

We could make it darker.
We could make it bigger.

We could go into space. We
could have laser pistols.

You know, that was the point.

We could do anything
we wanted with this one

because we
weren't restricted.

- And then
you're on to the next thing,

so after GoldenEye we
were doing Perfect Dark

and we were going
to make this game

so much better than GoldenEye.

- Perfect Dark certainly feels

like an evolution of
GoldenEye. It clearly is.

It still feels very similar,

but obviously
everything is opened up.

- In a lot of ways,
it was the kind of

sequel that the fans wanted.

It doubled down on the
multiplayer aspect,

you had bots, you had
much more customization

you could do in the multiplayer,
lots more weapons,

just a huge array of things.

But then it went kind
of off the rails,

like Indiana Jones 4 style,
with aliens and stuff like that.

I don't know,
it got a little silly.

- The big fight we had, myself

and Martin and
others on the team,

we really wanted to
have a female character.

- Jeanne d'Arc, yes.

Joan of Arc, that's where
it comes from originally.

And that was Dr. Doak's idea.

- Just because it was such
a misogynist industry.

It's nice to look back
on that and to think

that we kind of got to
push something there

because we had some
clout at the time.

- Perfect Dark sold a little
over 2 million copies,

I think, as compared with
GoldenEye's 8 million.

- The debate between whether
GoldenEye or Perfect Dark

is the better game
is a very complicated one.

And there's going
to be lots of people

on each side of the fence.

You can break
Perfect Dark really badly.

I mean, you can do stuff that
brings the game to a crawl.

- [Naz Pattison] Although
certainly what they were

doing with bots and
stuff was incredible.

There are a lot of features,

like the counter operative
stuff was amazing.

There were so many great ideas
in it, but I think for me,

it just didn't come
out at the right time.

- GoldenEye just never left
the machine as a multiplayer.

And even though Perfect
Dark has more stuff

going on in there in
terms of AI, weapons,

laptop guns, you know,
it has more, but again,

when it comes to a quick
plug and play session

with your mates,
less is more, you know?

(upbeat music)

- [Speedrunner] Right here,
it's this one. My insane pace.

- [Karl Jobst] Oh my God.

- [Speedrunner]
I wait, I wait, I wait,

right when he starts firing
to try to backboost me.

The double. Body armor.
Two quick ones.

I already know I'm getting
there on the perfect line.

Oh, fuck, what a run.

Fuck.

I can't even play anymore
tonight after that.

It's... I don't know.

Oh! Fuck!

Fuck. Oh my God. Oh my God.

- [Ryan White] My friends,
hello and welcome

to GoldenEye SpeedLore,
the series where

we look at the speed run
world record progression

of a stage in GoldenEye,
and the stories...

So speed running is the act
of trying to beat a video game

or a part of a video game
as quickly as possible.

And it might sound
crazy to some,

but it's kind of this
additional challenge

that anyone can do in a game.

- The cheat system
in GoldenEye was one of

the things that really
drove the initial desire

to beat the levels fast
because you had to clear

a level on a particular
difficulty under a certain time

in order to unlock the cheats.

- Speed running now,
after 2010 or even

the mid-2000s, started
getting popularity,

but GoldenEye was
big from the start.

- [Wes McKinney] When I
took over the website,

I was updating all of
the records by hand,

literally by editing HTML files.

And so people would
send me emails

with all of their new records.

And then I would go and
manually insert them.

When I was 15 years old, it
was a big part of who I was.

- If you achieve a good time,

you can go online and
say, hey, I did this.

And the people who also
share that same passion

can give you some
attention and respect.

- All these teenagers came
together in the late nineties,

early 2000s, and became
lifelong friends.

- When you get a really
good new untied world record

that no one's ever had before,

it almost feels like
exploring new lands.

- [Wes McKinney] You
would finish the level

and there would be, like your
heart would skip two beats,

and then you would press
A and you'd be like,

you know, did I get it?
And be like just... you know.

- You're the only
person in the world

to see those numbers

on the end screen of the game.

You know, you're it.

- There's this sort of
psychological catnip

that led to this addictive,
kind of obsessive,

cycle with the game.

- There are very few things
that beat that rush still today.

I can say that.

- What would lead
a person to play

the same stage a
thousand times in a row?

- You see a lot of guys
who maybe, you know,

they're not at the best place
in their life at the time.

Maybe they've just lost a job

or gotten out of a
relationship or, you know,

maybe they're a bit downtrodden.

Speed running can be a natural
kind of place of comfort

to give them a sense of
direction and focus to carry on.

- [Narrator] Fresh off
the success of GoldenEye

and deep into production
of Perfect Dark,

the unthinkable happened.

Several key members of the team,

Hilton, Norgate, Doak, and
Ellis, left the company,

setting off to form a new
studio, Free Radical Design.

- [Steve Ellis] So we started
off with myself, Dave Doak,

Karl Hilton, Graeme
Norgate, and Lee Ray,

who all left Rare
roughly at the same time.

And we started in April, '99.

- [Karl Hilton] It was a
hugely difficult decision.

In some respects,
I mean, on the one hand,

I think we were all ready
to go and do Free Radical.

And we were all very excited
by the idea of Free Radical.

And we all knew we were
young and confident

enough that we thought,
oh, it's going to be,

yeah, we'll do this.
It'll be a great success.

We'll be fine, you know.

- It was a thing that I was
thinking about for a while.

After GoldenEye...

I don't know.
I mean, we were young and naive

and we kind of
felt like we'd done it

all ourselves,
which in retrospect,

I now realize that there
will have been things

going on behind the scenes
that we were unaware of

that allowed us to have the time

that we had to make
that game good.

- [Narrator] With
their stock high,

they signed an exclusive
deal with publisher Eidos

to develop a game
for a new console,

the Sony PlayStation 2.

The new game would
be Time Splitters.

But could it live up
to the standard

they'd set with GoldenEye?

- [Karl Hilton] PlayStation
2 was around the corner.

So as soon as Eidos had
signed us up, you know,

then it was straight to Sony.

Look, we're going
to make another game.

It's going to be a multiplayer.

I think your console is clearly
going to be a great console

to do it on, and then
Sony was super supportive,

and yes, suddenly we had
dev kits in our office.

- [Peer Schnieder] We were
all super excited about

Free Radical and then after
we played Time Splitters,

we really liked what we saw.

- We were the only
European-developed launch title,

you know, so that was
a very quick sort of,

here's a fun game,
not much to it,

but it's got all
these bits and pieces

and have a bit of fun with it.

- When we made the Time Splitters'
games with Free Radical,

it was kind of like,
we want a chocolate box,

we want to do everything.
So those games were that.

The original Time Splitters
was a multiplayer game,

just let's throw everything
and see what sticks.

- I think a lot of fans went
to Time Splitters and said,

oh my God, this brings
back all the memories

from GoldenEye and
the way it feels,

but what Free Radical
did with that game

is just speed it up.

- It was all about
immediacy and accessibility.

Pick up and play.

You should just be able
to start playing,

choose a bunch of
settings that you fancy

at that time and have
fun straightaway.

- There was no great design
document for Time Splitters

at the start that said,

this is the game and this
is how it's going to work

and this is what things
you're going to do.

- It just had such
a nice feel to it.

And you could pick
it up and play it

without a whole lot of
learning for it as well,

which means you can get
people who aren't so

big a gamers in on it,
and you could actually

have your four
player split-screen

and everybody's having fun.

- It wasn't representative
of what we were capable of.

It was representative of what
we had enough time to do.

So Time Splitters 2 was where

we wanted to show
what we could do.

- Time Splitters 2 was obviously
our chance to do it properly.

And we had more time and the
first one had been successful.

So Eidos were happy
for us to spend

a bit more money
and a bit more time

making a more detailed
one with a proper story,

and then a bit more
character development in it.

- And they were quite hands-off.

That's a thing that was
also true of GoldenEye.

I think that's the thing
that makes a big difference

to the end result of a project.

- [Narrator]
The Time Splitters series

would go on to be one
of the most successful

franchises on the PlayStation 2,

selling over 3.5 million
copies on the system

and earning a dedicated
and passionate fan base.

Throughout the mid-2000s,
Free Radical Design

would go on to create
titles like Second Sight

for the PS2 and
Haze for the PS3.

- [Steve Ellis] After we
finished Time Splitters,

Lucas Arts approached
us and said

they'd like us to
make a Star Wars game.

- It was a hugely fun
thing to be working on.

Obviously the team
was stoked because

we got access to
all of the great

resources and
history of Star Wars.

- [David Doak] I can
remember it just being an

absolute joy to go to work.

We were making what
we wanted to make.

We personally felt vested
in it because we owned

the business and we
were creating our thing.

- [Narrator] Back at Rare,
change was in the air.

The Nintendo deal
had reached its end

and Rare needed a new partner.

Companies like Activision
and Microsoft were circling.

And for the successful bidder,

the spoils would be
Rare's reputation

and its passionate fan base.

For Rare, it was an
opportunity to secure

the long-term viability
of the company,

but it wouldn't be without risk.

The Rare faithful would
have to hold their breath

as giant corporations moved in.

- [Simon Parkin] Owners of
the company and the founders,

Chris and Tim stamper, put
the company up for sale.

And they're looking
to find a buyer.

Microsoft's interested,
Activision's interested

and Nintendo is interested.

And I think a lot of the staff
were like, well, you know,

hopefully we'll be
acquired fully by Nintendo,

but Nintendo's CEO at the
time gives them a valuation

that's way, way lower
than what they're after.

And Activision
puts in a big bid.

So it looks for a moment
that they're going to go

with Activision, and then
for one reason or another,

that deal falls through.

(Conker yelling)

- [James Batchelor] When
Microsoft bought Rare in 2002,

I believe it was, I think
they lost a little bit.

I think some people at Rare
would kind of agree with that.

Case in point,
that's when you started

to see people leave Rare
and form Free Radical.

Microsoft wanted to
really push Kinect

and really want to push this
kind of hands-free control thing.

But you had Kinect
Sports, Kinect Adventure,

all these kinds of
games that people

just didn't feel were Rare.

You didn't feel that
Rare quality about it

because they were
mini game collections

and that's not really what
Rare did. Rare built worlds.

- I left Rare because
I became less enamoured

with it as time went,
after Tim and Chris left,

that was it for me.
I liked them being there.

When they left, I don't
think I left long after that.

I didn't want to be
there really anymore.

- [Steve Ellis] For a long
time we described that as

the best publisher
relationship we'd ever had,

it was working
really, really well.

It was going so well
that not long after that,

they asked us to
also start working

on the sequel at the same time.

In order to do that, we
had to grow the company.

- [David Doak] As it
got bigger and bigger,

more time was kind of
spent on dealing

with the frictions
that you have,

particularly with publishers.

- It was two and a half years,

but I mean the
amount of money

in at that point would
have been eight figures.

The funding model then
was publisher advances.

And if you have a good
publisher relationship,

then you're safe,

but that relationship has
always got some conflict in it.

It got to the point where
we were doing milestones

every month and
sending them off.

And if the publisher
didn't like what they saw,

we wouldn't get paid, and our
burn rate was astronomical.

So, you know,
it doesn't take much

for the wheels to come off.

- Unfortunately,
you know, the story was

not a great one obviously,
you know, the studio

running into trouble with
Battlefront development.

- That becomes quite difficult

if that goes on for
more than a few months,

because everyone
needs to get paid.

- When it came to
the end of the year,

we had to put the company
into administration.

- That was gutting, you know.

- In almost every
publisher we worked with,

there was some
degree of conflict

and that took us
down in the end.

(somber music)

- Today is a culmination of
about three years of planning.

We're filming an
actual real film

called Bringing Back GoldenEye.

- I'm Dan Guest,
I'm the director

of Bringing Back GoldenEye,

the mockumentary
written by Jim Miskell,

all about the GoldenEye
world championships.

- [Jim Miskell] It was the first thing
I'd ever been good at,

never mind a game,
and I was amazing at it.

So I've written two
films about GoldenEye.

Obviously,
this is the second one.

First was Going For GoldenEye.

I made it myself,
basically wrote it,

directed it, produced it,
made the costumes, edited it.

I made everything apart
from hold the camera,

hold the boom, and
act in it basically.

And I'd never do that ever
again. It was very stressful.

Grant Kirkhope said it
was the film of the year,

which, you know, what more
could you want, really?

David Doak compared it to
Spinal Tap, King of Kong.

I'm really happy that
the Rare guys liked it.

I'm really, really proud of it
just because I did it,

you know, end of the day,

a lot of people can say
they're going to do stuff,

but I'll put my money
where my mouth is.

And I went through and did it.

And I saw it all
the way through.

But now I've hired a
lovely crew and producers

and everything and lots
of lovely actors and,

yeah, they're making
an awesome film.

- [Dan Guest] It's
written by a massive fan.

Jim's just written a
great story with

a lot of little inside jokes and
obviously David Doak's involved.

And it's just a great nostalgia
trip for fans of the game.

- What we're filming
these next couple of days

is the world championships
interior parts of the film.

There'll be a hundred extras in,

and we've got a stage full of

new competitors and characters.

So it's going to be a big day,

and David Doak from
the GoldenEye team

is coming to present the trophy.

Which is just mind blowing

because I've shot
that guy in the head

so many times in the facility!

(upbeat music)

I guess the legacy of
GoldenEye is the fans.

You know, and what they
do with those memories

and how they keep it alive.

I mean like, look
what's going on here.

To me, I'm hopefully
contributing to the legacy

of GoldenEye and people
enjoy what I'm doing

because, you know,
I think it's important

that we tell stories
based on video games.

You know, we're the first couple

of generations where
that's our entertainment.

And so I'm celebrating this game

that's a big part of my life.

- It's really
interesting when you look

at the James Bond games
that came after GoldenEye.

The Eurocom Bond games
were pretty competent.

Some of the more
vehicular-based,

like some of the other ones
were trying to do some of

the stuff that GoldenEye
did, but failed.

- [James Batchelor] GoldenEye's the one
that people keep coming back to.

When in doubt,
do a GoldenEye.

So EA did this with
GoldenEye Rogue Agent.

You worked for the
villains and there's kind

of almost like a mob war,

like you're working with
the villains

as they kind of fight
against each other.

And it was called
GoldenEye because

he actually has a golden eye,

and Activision did the same
thing after Quantum of Solace,

was basically a Call of Duty
with a bit of a Bond skin.

They did the GoldenEye
007 re-imagining for Wii

to try and tap in that nostalgia

because that's the game
that people remember.

That's the game
that people love.

- [Ad Narrator] Who here
would say that it's one of

the greatest shooters of all time?

- Everybody.
- It set the standard.

- Problem is, as good as
some of these games were,

none of them match GoldenEye.

- Nobody ever got close
to kind of

bringing home that magic again.

- [Krishan Sharma] I think
by calling it GoldenEye

and then releasing a game that

is not in beat or in tune
with what made

GoldenEye so special, I
think upset a lot of people.

I think a lot of people were
expecting a one-to-one remake,

but that's not what they got.

(upbeat music)

(keyboard clicking)

The XBLA remake,
for a lot of us,

we had heard rumblings about it.

- [Blaine Morehead] Sounds
like it was almost at 100%,

like it sounds like it was
pretty much ready to go.

- [Krishan Sharma]
It was written about

absolutely by every
major gaming publication

and it even actually
did hit a couple

of mainstream press as well.

- [Journalist] Yes, I was
there, I was part of the staff

when the news broke
about a GoldenEye

release for the
Xbox Live Arcade.

I think what made the Rare
employee want to do it

was I don't think it had
anything to do with anger,

I don't think it had
anything to do with spite,

I think it was...

the intention was
to get it out there

so that the
world could see it.

- Just the way those
leaks were released,

by almost like a double agent.

- It's such a shame
that we never got

the GoldenEye HD remake
that was rumored

for Xbox 360, I think it was.

So it was going to be a HD
version of GoldenEye 64,

all the levels you
remember, but with kind of

much more realistic graphics
and online multiplayer,

and the problem is at the
time, it was such a legal mess.

- We're talking, you know,
three, four companies

that need to all see eye to eye

and get a proper
piece of that pie.

- Microsoft owned Rare
and Rare owned the game,

except GoldenEye 64 was
published by Nintendo,

so Nintendo had the
rights to that game

because Rare worked for
them and was licensed.

It was all licensed by them,

except Activision at the time
had the James Bond license.

Just became this massive,

you've got three
companies arguing over

who does and doesn't
have the rights to it.

And it meant that
ultimately it never came out.

(keyboard clicking)

(upbeat music)

(ominous music)

- [Krishan Sharma] People who
grew up on GoldenEye are now

trying to make the remake
that they didn't get.

(upbeat music)

I mean, we had the Quake engine

and the Doom engine
that we, you know,

and yet saw some impressive mods

that were being made
from those engines.

But then Source
engine came along.

- GoldenEye: Source
is this project

that is totally fan
made that is built

on the Source engine by Valve.

So the engine that
ran Half-Life 2.

- GoldenEye: Source is a remake

of the multiplayer
component of GoldenEye.

- [Blaine Morehead] They
have essentially re-imagined

the GoldenEye levels
to be remastered

to make it look
more like the movie.

It's higher res textures,
higher polygon count models.

All the weapons are redone,
sound effects, and music even,

and all in the spirit of
let's get our favorite

kind of couch death match
game online

so that we can
play it, you know,

with people from
all over the world.

- [Krishan Sharma] So we didn't
get the remake that we want.

We constantly hear these
rumblings in the industry

about how there is a
GoldenEye out there,

remake that is done. It's
just not being released.

- [Simon Parkin] The inability
for the corporations to

figure out a way to get a
remastered version of GoldenEye

out has created a vacuum

into which fans have fallen

and they're making
their own projects.

You know, their sort of
black label versions.

- [Curtis Higgins]
I am Curtis Higgins.

I am co-creator of
GoldenEye: Source.

GoldenEye: Source is a adaptation

of the original Nintendo 64
game. We started in 2004.

The team has touched all
corners of the globe.

We currently have
members from Canada, US,

Switzerland, UK, Spain,
Australia, Brazil.

- Says something about
the fondness that people

hold for this game that
they would dedicate

so much of their time
to recreating it,

you know, either for
their own pleasure,

but also probably for
younger generations.

- The cool thing
about indie development

is you can either make
something yourself

or get one or two or
three or half a dozen

of your friends and build
something with tools

that are free or cheap
and widely available.

- You can learn
how to 3D model

with free open
source software now.

You can learn, you know,
Unreal Engine, Unity,

these are free to play
around with game engines.

- [Krishan Sharma] So
now we have these tools,

these game development tools,
that we never had before.

What's interesting to
see is how these tools

are being utilized by people
who grew up playing GoldenEye.

- [Blaine Morehead] And so that
democratization of the tools

is kind of leveling
this whole field

and making these
projects possible.

- [Emily Elmund] In the end,
it's just a group of people

who absolutely love
the original game

and they just want
to bring an updated,

modern version to
people who love it.

- No other game that you play,

where you're playing Call
of Duty or another game,

and you're like, oh, I really
hate the way this happens,

all of a sudden a developer
or somebody pops up and goes,

oh, I'll change that next week.

Next thing you know,
all the problems

you had with the
game are now fixed.

- [Tristan Ogilvie] Those teams
that are kind of off the leash

and can do what they
want without fear of, you know,

failing any focus tests
or anything like that.

- [Grant Kirkhope] Sometimes I
feel like the corporatization

of it all has sucked a bit of
the creativity out of it.

That's what I feel.

I like that kind of gamers
making games for gamers model.

I kind of feel that's
a great way to do it.

- We've had a few
members, they reached out

to Dr. Doak on Twitter,

we arranged a session
where we were able to play.

He came in, we played with
him. He played with the team.

We were only expecting him
to play for about an hour.

And he ended up staying
for about five hours.

It was definitely a
dream of mine to

show my work to an
original developer.

Modding provides an outlet
for your creativity.

It allows you to try
and fail

and you just get to
have fun.

- [Blaine Morehead]
GoldenEye is still very alive

and well in the modding scene.

You know, when Elon Musk
unveiled the cyber truck,

it was like a day
or two after that

that someone modded the truck

into the streets level
and even had, you know,

a low poly Elon
Musk in there that

actually spoke to the
character in the game.

It's like, it's just
so wonderful that

that kind of stuff is out there.

- [Donnie York] The
GoldenEye modding scene

has really exploded with so
many different custom levels.

There's new sounds,
there's new characters,

there's new weapons,
there's new music.

- One of the things
I really love

about GoldenEye 007
is that there's still

this community around the world.

They're making
mods for the game.

- What people can do nowadays
is practically endless.

It's constantly evolving.

What you see one year, the
next year will be even greater.

There's mods where people have

completely changed
the style of the game,

the timeframe, the genre,

and making world war type games

where you might still be Bond,

but you're taking on Nazis

and you're going through
old hangars and streets,

and you're using
these classic weapons

that sound extremely
realistic and accurate

to the original representation,

but then there's other ones
that base themselves

on something
completely different.

- Everything in the game,
from wall textures

to weapons, to characters,
to items,

has been changed.

- It still has the same physics
and controls and engine,

but it takes on
a whole new life.

- These projects are
just amazing efforts.

And it's all in
these small modding

communities where they crop up.

- [Daniel Scales] It's a
very close knit community

and that's awesome. A lot
of people willing to share

and promote other
people's projects

and keen to see other
people in industry

and other developers'
projects do really well.

- [Donnie York] We were
all helping each other.

Anybody would come
up with an idea

and if they didn't have
the thought process

of how to possibly do it,

they might pass it
on to somebody else

who is more experienced
and they can try it out

and they have different
opinions of their own.

And we were all just
kind of banking off

each other to come up
with as many cool

new discoveries as we could.

And it just really
blew the game apart.

- When you want to talk
about the future of gaming

and the company
or group of people

who are going to move the needle

or take the next
evolutionary step,

it probably won't be AAA.

- I think innovation has
now moved from AAA

to the indie scene
because the indie scene

is basically what Rare
was back in the nineties.

It's small teams,
pretty inexperienced,

doing it out of
the love for making

something that
they want to make.

- [Narrator] In 2012, following
the lackluster 007 Legends,

Activision abandoned
the Bond license.

James Bond would be
absent from video game

store shelves for
nearly 10 years,

and discovering
the magic formula

of GoldenEye's success
remains elusive to this day.

- [Peer Schnieder] Nobody
ever got close to

kind of bringing home
that magic again.

And that's, you know,
because maybe it was,

everybody tried to
take what GoldenEye

had created and tried
to replicate it.

And so it kind of felt
like more up-to-date,

but kind of cheaper
copies of GoldenEye.

What we didn't see was
a lot of innovation

in the newer Bond
games that really

kind of maybe also adapted
with what James Bond

was becoming in the
Pierce Brosnan era.

- [Steve Ellis]
I often say, you know,

when I'm explaining to
newcomers to the industry,

that I think a lot
of great games

are not necessarily the result
of a great person in charge

or a great team making the game,

but they kind of reflect
a great environment

that allows them the
flexibility to experiment.

- It was
about eight people.

In my experience,
later in the games industry

was once you get to
teams which are bigger

than say the size
of a sports team,

that network of interpersonal
connections gets fuzzier.

And also you end up
with a hierarchy

because you have to have some
kind of production hierarchy.

So people don't
feel that empowered.

Somebody, anyone on the team
could have an idea

and within an hour
we could all have discussed it.

So we were very agile.

- You definitely
feel the presence

of corporations a lot more.

A lot of the most
prominent UK developers

are owned by massive publishers

or have been owned and shut
down by massive publishers.

Rare is owned by
Microsoft, and all right,

they're allowed to
do their own thing,

but they are very much doing

their own thing on
Microsoft's payroll.

- Things have become a little
bit more corporate and safe.

Generally, I think that's true
of all game development.

Some of the risks
that are taken in GoldenEye

just wouldn't fly
in this day and age.

Going back to
that inexperienced team,

small team, you
know, movie license,

even the freedom that
they had with the license

these days wouldn't
happen, you know,

to be able to kind of
include stuff

from previous Bond films,
you know, characters,

to actually go on the movie set,

photograph everything,
going back to that

and the idea of perfect storm,

everything kind of
just aligned to create

this wonderful experience.

- The size of their team in
many respects was a strength.

You know, they didn't
have the problem

of having sort of
too many shifts.

They didn't really have the
problem of too many layers

of management that a lot of
AAA games have these days.

And they didn't
really have anyone

telling them what they should
do, or more importantly,

they didn't really have
anyone telling them

what they couldn't do, but
they just did everything.

And they just found a way.

(somber music)

- Everything that
I've done since, obviously,

comes from the fact
that Martin Hollis

walked into my room that
morning and I said yes.

And I shudder when
I think about

what would have happened
if I had gone, eh. You know!

- When people are successful,

they're generally successful
because they worked hard

and they have ability, but
they've always been lucky.

You know, that's the thing
that they don't tell you.

- If you didn't
have any one of us

on the actual team, you wouldn't
have got the same game.

- It was
a great project to work on.

'Cause it was a
small close knit team

who were working
with a great license.

It's a once in a lifetime
opportunity.

We had enormous fun.

- It was the right people
at the right time.

It really was. The fact we all
loved Bond, I loved Bond,

we all just loved Bond,
you know, so

you just put the extra
effort in, didn't you?

- People keep
coming up to me and telling me

I've changed their childhood

or taken their childhood.

- It's surreal
that after all this time

it's still a thing that
we're talking about.

It was the first thing that
I did after leaving uni.

It was literally more
than half of my life ago.

And here we are
talking about it.

- Over 23 years in
or something

and people will still
remember it fondly

and have questions about it.

- Although it frustrates
the hell out of me

that that's the only thing people
remember you for, you know,

it's still nice that
you've done that thing

and people go,
that was my game.

- GoldenEye in one word
for me, is fun.

Simple as that, because

it was just fun to play
from start to finish.

- Bond. It's just
so very, very Bond.

- One word.

Evolutionary.

In terms of video games,

and me. It evolved me.

It changed me. It changed
exactly who I am now.

It's...

No other video game will get the
chance to do that again.

- There was something
very special, that...

some kind of spark, some kind
of life that GoldenEye had

that these other Bond
games didn't quite get,

as close as they came.

- Even 20 years later,
there's a certain,

you know, je ne sais quoi
about it, but...

Yeah, if somebody
has a better answer,

I'd be very interested in that.

- I'm so glad
that I am my age now

because I don't want to sound
patronizing or condescending,

but if you've got
a multiplayer game,

just go round your
friend's house and play it.

Don't play it online.
Don't. I sound really old.

But just sit next
to 'em on a couch

with two other people
or five people,

six people, and just
enjoy the game,

as well as your...

your bodies
being next to each other.

- You hear all these
stories about how people

have met and Dave was
halfway across the world

and because of our
mutual love of a game,

we happened to meet,
and that's insane.

- GoldenEye: Source
became this big thing,

and then that
brought us together

now that we're young adults

and now we're married

and have a house
because of that game.

- To think that if we'd
never met in that game,

we'd never have met in person.

It just keeps coming back

into our lives in some
kind of degree.

- It grabbed people.

I've seen people come and go,

and they come back
and they come back

and they come back because
they can't stay away from it.

They might go away from
it for a couple years,

but something about it
always pulls them back in.

- In the office
at IGN, every day,

we would boot up GoldenEye
at the end of the day,

and then people would
forget to go home.

It's lovely that
people still loved it.

It's lovely that we
had such an effect,

that people clearly
enjoyed playing it so much.

You know, you don't think about
that when you're making it,

we were having fun playing
it. We knew we liked it.

And you hope that other
people will like it.

- It's just
this entire era for me

of just having fun with
a game that you bought

and there wasn't anything
else to buy for it.

No microtransactions,
no expansions,

everybody had the same game.

You just had to sit in
front of the console,

pick up a controller,
and away you go.

- I mean, some people
stormed out the house

like almost in tears that they
lost GoldenEye matches.

You know what I mean?
Because they were like, yeah,

I'm the best at GoldenEye.

Come round Will's on
Saturday and see what happens.

You got destroyed, didn't you?

Yeah, and they just walk away,

and you're like,
see you next week?

Yeah. See you...

- [Overlapping presenters] We've been
talking about this game for so long.

A game from the
olden times.

...most beloved
licensed video games ever made.

GoldenEye 007 for Xbox Live...

- [Narrator] In early 2021,
something remarkable happened.

The shelved GoldenEye remake
leaked onto the internet.

After being locked
away for over a decade,

a full play through of the
much anticipated remake

was streamed online by
the world's most prominent

GoldenEye streamer, Graslu00.

Almost a quarter of a
century after its release,

players all around the
world came together

once again to reconnect
over their favorite game.

Global news outlets
beamed fresh GoldenEye news

into living rooms
as the rights holders

could only watch on as the sales

the remake might've
made vanished.

Deep into the 21st century,

nearly 25 years after
its original release,

the impact is undeniable.

Rare's GoldenEye 007 lives on.

(upbeat music)

# No time to waste,
feel the silvery shake #

# You got the guts to try #

# To be the best,
better or play the rest #

# You know it,
to be the Golden Child #

# You better shoot straight,
there ain't no debate #

# It takes a steely eye #

# Flick of the wrist,
guess a hit or miss #

# Or then it's somebody's
time to die #

# GoldenEye #

# It's gonna get you #

# GoldenEye #

# Yeah, it's got you in its sights #

# GoldenEye #

# So take the pain and realise #

# GoldenEye #

# There's no escape from GoldenEye #

# Can't keep your nerve,
you'll get all you deserve #

# If you can hold the line #

# She lacks a will,
bring a thrill of the kill #

# That'll keep you pumped up,
adrenalised #

# This ain't no game #

# Don't be fooled by the name,
no, no, no #

# This is a way of life #

# So strap on in, it's about to begin #

# The victor will run the golden mile #

# Run the golden mile #

# GoldenEye #

# It's gonna get you #

# GoldenEye #

# Yeah, it's got you in its sights #

# GoldenEye #

# So take the pain and realise #

# GoldenEye #

# There's no escape from GoldenEye #

# GoldenEye #

# It's gonna get you #

# GoldenEye #

# Yeah, it's got you in its sights #

# GoldenEye #

# Take the pain and realise #

# GoldenEye #

# There's no escape, there's no escape #

# GoldenEye #

# It's gonna get you #

# GoldenEye #

# Yeah, it's got you in its sights #

# GoldenEye #

# Take the pain and realise #

# GoldenEye #

# There's no escape from GoldenEye #