Goldeneye 007 remaster has been announced for Xbox, but there’s a catch

What you need to know

• The rumored GoldenEye 007 remaster has been officially confirmed for release in today’s Nintendo Direct.
• Rare has made a statement on Twitter revealing it will come to Xbox Game Pass as part of Rare Replay.
• The remaster will include improved graphics and split-screen local multiplayer, but no online multiplayer for the Xbox release.

Following months of speculation, rumors, and a leaked achievements list, today Rare has finally confirmed the arrival of a GoldenEye 007 remaster. Today’s Nintendo Direct showcased an official trailer for the long-anticipated release, followed by a tweet from Xbox studio Rare confirming the game will also come to Xbox Game Pass. However, the tweet does not mention that the Xbox edition will be not receiving online multiplayer, which has been confirmed for the Nintendo Switch.

The remaster will feature improved graphics, boosted framerate and native 16:9 4K resolution on Xbox. Local split-screen multiplayer will also be a feature for up to four players, but so far online multiplayer has only been announced for the Nintendo release. Online multiplayer on Nintendo Switch Online is a system level feature, allowing any classic game from the N64 library that had local multiplayer features to work online via virtualized emulation.

So far there has been no release date confirmed but this announcement comes 25 years following the original release, and fans will be excited to have all the speculation of the past months confirmed by official sources. The announcement has been dampened somewhat by the online multiplayer effectively being a Nintendo Switch exclusive. Bringing online virtualized multiplayer features to classic games on Xbox would require additional investments in the Xbox backward compatibility system, which has been put on hiatus at least for now.