One of the most fascinating things about video games is that their history isn’t always what you expect. For some games, their creation were accidental, forced, or just plain luck. And certain things that were felt of as “brilliant” weren’t always planned. If you want an example of such a story, then look no further than the legendary shooter Goldeneye from the N64 era. Today, this game is known for its incredible 4-person multiplayer that many feel helped establish that genre in terms of shooters. But it wasn’t meant to be that way.
Mel Magazine sat down with some of the original Goldeneye team, and was told about how the multiplayer wasn’t a focus at first:
“The multiplayer mode, which is now seen as critical for its big success, was for a long time just a wish-list thing, not a thing that we were definitely going to have. The N64 had four controller ports so it invited the idea that you’d have four-player split screen, but we were only going to program a multiplayer mode if we had time.”
Another team member noted that they actually started to work on it BEFORE it got greenlit as a feature:
“I remember doing the code to handle the four-player split screen rendering before we’d actually been given the go-ahead to add in a multiplayer mode. That way when the decision was being made on whether to include it, I could say, ‘Well, we already have a split-screen mode working — it would be a shame not to use it!’
And then…once it got more-or-less made…
“We got a basic demo mode going, and it was fun. So we all decided it needed to be turned into a proper part of the game with different modes and scoreboards and that kind of thing. I don’t think I ever thought of it as a game-changer at the time, but we all enjoyed playing it ourselves and had lots of fun developing it, so that was enough.”
And the rest is history. Goldeneye is still revered to this day, and it was all because they decided to go offbook.
One more thing, they also confirmed that using Oddjob is cheating.
