The upcoming GoldenEye 007 fan reboot titled GoldenEye 25 is officially cancelled. As holders of the intellectual property, MGM and Danjaq sent a cease and desist letter to the developers GoldenZen.
But while this news hurts more than being crushed by pieces of a gigantic satellite dish, there’s still a bit of silver lining. There will still be a game that is styled like GoldenEye, just without the actual specific GoldenEye references.
GoldenEye 007 reboot cancelled
The news of the cease and desist letter certainly is crushing. Both fans of the iconic Nintendo 64 video game and the team of developers trying to revive it are effectively heartbroken.
In a dev blog, one of the devs explains the situation in detail, stating that they will comply to MGM’s requests. He also says that this scenario was always in the back of the devs’ heads.
As a fan-made reboot, they technically never owned any intellectual property. So GoldenZen were basically at the mercy of the companies that did. Or as developer Yannick Zenhäusern puts it:
We don’t want to create any fuss. (…) I like to put it this way: They (MGM and Danjaq) organized a party and we were just hanging around there. Now we’ve been kindly asked to leave. Which, of course, we will do. We will comply.
Silver lining
GoldenEye 007 is one of those games almost everyone (who played it) remembers fondly. It’s a nostalgic, era-defining videogame that was in many ways way ahead of it’s time.
Zenhäusern, who shares his first name with yours truly, loves the concept of the game just as much as the game itself. And that’s what the devs will be doing; turning their GoldenEye 007 reboot into a spiritual successor, steering clear of the James Bond I.P.
So there is a silver lining to this dumpster fire of a situation. Zernhäusern goes on to express his optimism:
It’s still going to have those elements of the beloved 90’s shooter that we love so much. So we’ll still very much be in the spirit of that old game. (…) We have to say that it opens a whole world of possibilities; Things that were not conceivable before.
In other words, the devs have completely pivoted their game to fit the demands of MGM and Danjaq. And what’s left is something reminiscent of GoldenEye 007, without Bond or any of the story beats. Luckily, many features of the game created in the last couple of years can either be re-used or repurposed.
So many notifications it's breaking Twitter, so sorry if I miss some questions/comments!
Some things we can still use:
🔹The watch menu
🔹Weapons and the ammo system
🔹Portions of levels
🔹Game code
🔹A large library of 3D models and textures.
🔹Sound effects pic.twitter.com/g5fd3lEKk0— S.P.I.E.S. Game (@spies_game) August 11, 2020
We’re very excited to see what the guys from GoldenZen can make out of this mess. It’s a bummer that we won’t relive that iconic game in the form of a GoldenEye 007 reboot. But maybe a completely new game could be even better.
At the very least, it enables the sympathetic and dedicated developers to actually earn something, as compensation for their hard work.
“For GoldenEye, Yannick?”
“No, for the fans!”