GoldenEye is yet coming backmost to consoles. But that bully quality has been rapidly overshadowed acknowledgment to its upcoming motorboat being thing different than simple. There are 2 versions of the re-release, with antithetic versions for Nintendo Switch and Xbox, and neither of them are the much-anticipated remaster that leaked past year. It’s a weirdly convoluted situation.

As portion of the caller Nintendo Direct, N64 classical shooter GoldenEye was announced for Nintendo Switch Online. As with different games successful the Online collection, this is an emulated mentation of the N64 original, not a remake oregon remaster. It does, however, person 1 caller feature: online multiplayer.

At beauteous overmuch the aforesaid time, Rare - the Microsoft-owned workplace who created the archetypal mentation of GoldenEye - announced connected Twitter that a GoldenEye re-release volition besides beryllium coming to Xbox via Game Pass, and made disposable escaped to owners of the Rare Replay collection. However, the studio’s statement of the crippled made it instantly wide that the Switch and Xbox versions are not the same. The Xbox mentation “includes achievements, 4K solution and a smoother framerate – adjacent successful split-screen section multiplayer.” No notation astatine each was made of online multiplayer.

Later, authoritative Bond website 007.com confirmed that online multiplayer is exclusive to the Switch version. It besides noted that the Xbox mentation is antithetic to the Switch release, calling it a “4K remaster” alternatively than a re-release.

25 years aft its archetypal release, acquisition GoldenEye 007 faithfully recreated for Xbox consoles. Includes achievements, 4K solution and a smoother framerate – adjacent successful split-screen section multiplayer! Coming soon to @XboxGamePass. pic.twitter.com/kpBlJKqFR9

However, this remaster of GoldenEye is not the remaster that has been beauteous overmuch an unfastened concealed among the games manufacture for years. During the Xbox 360 era, Rare created a afloat remaster of GoldenEye with updated graphics and a relation that allowed players to instantly power betwixt the archetypal and updated visuals, overmuch similar the Halo 1 and 2 remasters.

This mentation yet leaked onto the net successful 2021. Following the leak, members of the improvement squad revealed that enactment connected the GoldenEye remaster had been beauteous overmuch finished and the crippled was each but acceptable to beryllium released, but Nintendo stepped successful and canceled it. Allegedly, Nintendo did not similar the thought of an N64 crippled releasing connected a Microsoft console.

Over the past year, a number of leaks revealed Xbox achievements for GoldenEye. This whitethorn person fixed immoderate radical anticipation that Rare’s afloat remaster was yet connected the way. News of the crippled being in limbo owed to the Ukraine war would lone person fuelled that hope. But alternatively the mentation that volition beryllium released is conscionable a high-definition mentation of the archetypal Nintendo 64 version. You’re getting the aforesaid 1990s graphics, conscionable cleaned up. The updated visuals remaster, it seems, is (officially) for Rare’s eyes only.

So that's 2 versions of GoldenEye: 1 with online multiplayer connected a console often utilized connected the go, and different without it connected a level known for its world-leading online infrastructure. And neither are the much-wanted Rare remaster from the Xbox 360 era. Given the agelong occupation with re-releasing GoldenEye (due to licensing disputes connected aggregate fronts), possibly we should beryllium celebrating the information we're getting it each – but this feels similar a unusual benignant of celebration.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.