GoldenEye 007 was supposed to be a 2D platform game, and inspired by Donkey Kong!

May 14, 2025 Off By Markus Norat

How a Donkey Kong Country-inspired prototype became the greatest shooter of the Nintendo 64 generation

Today, GoldenEye 007 is revered as one of the defining milestones in video game history — especially in the first-person shooter (FPS) genre. But what few people know is that, before becoming this 90s icon, the game was born with a completely different proposal. The initial idea was to develop a 2D platform game for the Super Nintendo , heavily inspired by Donkey Kong Country . Yes, the same James Bond game that revolutionized multiplayer and stealth gameplay was almost a sidescroller in the style of Nintendo’s most famous gorilla.

Below, you’ll learn about this surprising turn in gaming history, how it happened, and why fate – and a series of bold decisions – turned GoldenEye 007 into the Nintendo 64’s most important title.

🕹️ The Original Proposal: A Donkey Kong in a Suit and Tie

Rare was at its peak in 1994. After the massive success of Donkey Kong Country , the British developer was one of Nintendo’s crown jewels. When the idea of adapting the upcoming GoldenEye movie came up, the company jumped at the chance. After all, adapting movies into games was a common occurrence — though rarely done well.

The first internal proposal was simple: create a 2D platform game for the Super Nintendo, using the same pre-rendered graphic style and fluid animation that made Donkey Kong Country a phenomenon. James Bond would jump between platforms, fight enemies with gadgets and, possibly, rescue hostages like a classic hero from the 16-bit era.

But that’s where Martin Hollis came into the picture.

🧠 The Turning Point: Martin Hollis and the Idea That Changed Everything

Martin Hollis, who had previously worked on the arcade version of Killer Instinct , saw an opportunity to do something different. When he first suggested the project, the Nintendo 64 was still in development — and he believed the new hardware allowed for much more than a simple sidescroller.

It was then that he proposed something radical: transforming GoldenEye into a 3D first-person shooter , a format still rare on consoles. To do this, he created a document with all the ideas he wanted to explore — manual aiming, adaptive artificial intelligence, use of gadgets, multiple objectives, localized damage to enemies and, most importantly, freedom for the player to act in different ways.

Hollis bet big. And he won.

🧪 A 3D Experiment with an Inexperienced Team

Nintendo bought the idea—and the project migrated to the then-unreleased Ultra 64 , the working name for the Nintendo 64. Rare began work on the game in January 1995 with a team of just three people: Hollis, programmer Mark Edmonds, and artist Karl Hilton. None of them, except the director, had made a game before.

Without access to the final console or the N64 controller, they used SGI Onyx workstations and adapted Sega Saturn controllers. Everything was prototyped blindly. The focus was on creating detailed scenarios inspired by real filming, with freedom of movement and multiple gameplay possibilities.

Rare had left behind the 2D platforming style, exchanging jumping for precision, and side-scrolling for immersive shootouts in realistic environments.

🧱 From Platformer to FPS: The Birth of a New Standard

Despite the genre’s transition, Donkey Kong Country ‘s influence lived on—not in the gameplay style, but in its technical boldness. Just as DKC reinvented the way graphics were used on a 16-bit console, GoldenEye 007 wanted to show what the Nintendo 64 was capable of.

The team at Rare also maintained an experimental spirit. Many of the game’s levels were built without a clear goal, instead prioritizing the design of believable environments. This gave the game a unique sense of a living, non-linear world, a stark contrast to the cramped corridors of FPS games of the time.

GoldenEye was inspired by Sega’s Virtua Cop for its aiming and movement system, Doom for its combat, and Super Mario 64 for its idea of multiple objectives in a single level. The result was a hybrid FPS , with a previously unheard-of mission structure that still echoed the design logic of platform games.

💾 A Prototype That Almost Became Reality

Interestingly, for years, it was believed that this 2D Bond game concept had remained a theoretical concept. However, internal Rare documents and statements from former employees have confirmed that some sprites and animations were sketched out for this initial version, which would have had a similar visual style to DKC — with Bond battling Russian soldiers, traps, and perhaps even jumping over enemies (!).

However, as the Super Nintendo was already nearing the end of its lifespan, and the Nintendo 64 promised revolutionary 3D graphics, the decision to change the genre saved the project from becoming just “another licensed game”.

🎯 The Hit That Redefined Everything

By the time GoldenEye 007 was released in 1997, there was nothing left of the original 2D project. In its place was a game no one expected — an FPS with advanced mechanics, an immersive campaign, and a multiplayer mode that would be copied for years to come.

The transition from a sidescroller to a three-dimensional shooter was more than a change in style: it was a decisive step towards the modernity of electronic games. And ironically, it came from a studio that made its name with a gorilla jumping on barrels.

📌 Extra Curiosities:

GoldenEye 007 was born as a platform game because Rare wanted to repeat the technical success of Donkey Kong Country .
The project was initially approved for the Super Nintendo, but never left the conceptual stage.
Rare used real photos from the filming of the movie to recreate the settings in the game.
The decision to migrate to the Nintendo 64 happened before the team even knew what the new console’s controller would be like.
Many elements of GoldenEye 007 ‘s level design were created before the level objectives were even created — something unusual at the time.
The multiplayer prototype only made it into the game in the last six months of development.

The story of GoldenEye 007 is a reminder that the greatest classics often come from unexpected gambles. What began as a Donkey Kong clone with a secret agent evolved into a revolutionary title that set the standard for console FPS games.

If it had been released as a sidescroller for the Super Nintendo, it might have been just another James Bond game. But thankfully, Rare took a chance – and the world of video games has never been the same.

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