Alright, so over the past few months. A former Rare Employee had uploaded some Goldeneye development videos to his Youtube channel.
They were quickly removed shortly after this was discovered, but the interesting thing to note is that they explicitly meant for Rare Replay. With this text appearing at the beginning of the raw gameplay footage.
(Name edited out to protect the original uploader's privacy.)
Rare has noted they recorded quite a bit of spare footage that would later get publicly released on their Youtube channel.
Consider the timing here, Activision's deal for the Bond license (inked in 2006) was meant to last until 2014. While pre-production work on the Rare Replay compilation started in September of that year.
These articles do mention them tossing out any titles that could cause licensing issues.
On that note, the alleged reason why said 360 remaster was originally cancelled was because Nintendo stopped it's release. But by the time Rare Replay had begun development, it's clear that the seeds of Microsoft & Nintendo's current partnership were starting to get planted. As on April 2015. Donkey Kong 64 got a surprise release on the Wii U Virtual Console.
Nintendo had previously re-released the DKC trilogy all the way back in 2006 on the original Wii Virtual Console. But this marked the first time DK64 was re-released, this was a pretty big deal. Considering that the game contained Jetpac, which was fully owned by Rare, and in turn, acquired by Microsoft when they bought Rare.
On top of that, there was some legal issues with the previous re-releases of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy that were resolved around the same time. They were all delisted in December 2012. Before suddenly returning by Febuary 2015. While they don't straight up include an entire Microsoft owned game in them, there's still a few references that Microsoft could have possibly objected to. Most notably the fact that Cranky's Museum in DKC2 includes a giant poster of Chief Thunder from Killer Instinct, as shown by awkwardly comparing it with his official promo art.
Note: Microsoft had attempted to renew the trademark for Killer Instinct on September 2012, for what would eventually become the 2013 reboot.
There's also evidence that these re-releases weren't meant to be Rare's sole contribution to the Wii U Virtual Console, as the config files for the N64 emulator list such titles as Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, and get this. Goldeneye 007.
So what happened here? Work on the Goldeneye videos intended for Rare Replay had continued into 2017. As the last video, the "5 facts" one. named that date in the description.
Any licensing issues that could have killed Goldeneye's inclusion in the collection should have also stopped them from making videos about it post-release, and the fact that the uploader suddenly removed them (Possibly because Microsoft contacted him about it?) is also odd, as said uploader still has other videos relating to his work at Rare on the channel.
Rumours that Goldeneye was finally getting a re-release have been floating around by reputable sources in the years since Rare Replay's release.
Note: This was the guy that leaked an exact description of the Sonic Movie trailer. Note that the post predates the reveal of Banjo in Smash as well.
So could this finally be the time?
TL;DR: Former Rare employee uploaded multiple videos intended for Rare Replay about Goldeneye to his personal Youtube channel, at least one of which was worked on after the Compilation launched. Videos were quickly taken down after they were discovered, which alongside the evidence that they were seriously working on re-releasing it during this period. Implies that whatever plans they were doing might still be in the pipeline.
They were quickly removed shortly after this was discovered, but the interesting thing to note is that they explicitly meant for Rare Replay. With this text appearing at the beginning of the raw gameplay footage.
The fact that it was recorded in 2015, in the middle of it's development, is highly curious. The former description of the Making Of video also mentions it was made in 2015. Which is highly unusual considering the game didn't include any making of videos for released titles not featured in the collection.
(Name edited out to protect the original uploader's privacy.)
Rare has noted they recorded quite a bit of spare footage that would later get publicly released on their Youtube channel.
But the only released game involved in said uploads that wasn't included in the collection was "It's Mr. Pants".
Consider the timing here, Activision's deal for the Bond license (inked in 2006) was meant to last until 2014. While pre-production work on the Rare Replay compilation started in September of that year.
These articles do mention them tossing out any titles that could cause licensing issues.
But the full list wouldn't be finalized until February 2015, and work on rounding up the devs for interviews had started the month prior.
There's also a note about them considering making unreleased prototypes playable in the collection, which would be a good possible location to include the unreleased remaster.
On that note, the alleged reason why said 360 remaster was originally cancelled was because Nintendo stopped it's release. But by the time Rare Replay had begun development, it's clear that the seeds of Microsoft & Nintendo's current partnership were starting to get planted. As on April 2015. Donkey Kong 64 got a surprise release on the Wii U Virtual Console.
Nintendo had previously re-released the DKC trilogy all the way back in 2006 on the original Wii Virtual Console. But this marked the first time DK64 was re-released, this was a pretty big deal. Considering that the game contained Jetpac, which was fully owned by Rare, and in turn, acquired by Microsoft when they bought Rare.
On top of that, there was some legal issues with the previous re-releases of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy that were resolved around the same time. They were all delisted in December 2012. Before suddenly returning by Febuary 2015. While they don't straight up include an entire Microsoft owned game in them, there's still a few references that Microsoft could have possibly objected to. Most notably the fact that Cranky's Museum in DKC2 includes a giant poster of Chief Thunder from Killer Instinct, as shown by awkwardly comparing it with his official promo art.
Note: Microsoft had attempted to renew the trademark for Killer Instinct on September 2012, for what would eventually become the 2013 reboot.
There's also evidence that these re-releases weren't meant to be Rare's sole contribution to the Wii U Virtual Console, as the config files for the N64 emulator list such titles as Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, and get this. Goldeneye 007.
| Filename | Product code | Revision probably? | Name | Actual name | Region |
|--------------------|--------------|--------------------|------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------|---------|
| Unbkj0.292.ini | NBKJ | 0 | Banjo2 JP | Banjo-Kazooie | JPN |
| Undoe0.556.ini | NDOE | 0 | DonkeyKong E | Donkey Kong 64 | USA |
| Undoj0.609.ini | NDOJ | 0 | DonkeyKong J | Donkey Kong 64 | JPN |
| Undop0.599.ini | NDOP | 0 | DonkeyKong P | Donkey Kong 64 | EUR |
| UNGEJ0.064.ini | NGEJ | 0 | GoldenEye JP | 007: Goldeneye | JPN |
| UNPDJ0.744.ini | NPDJ | 0 | Perfect Dark JP | Perfect Dark | JPN |
So what happened here? Work on the Goldeneye videos intended for Rare Replay had continued into 2017. As the last video, the "5 facts" one. named that date in the description.
Any licensing issues that could have killed Goldeneye's inclusion in the collection should have also stopped them from making videos about it post-release, and the fact that the uploader suddenly removed them (Possibly because Microsoft contacted him about it?) is also odd, as said uploader still has other videos relating to his work at Rare on the channel.
Rumours that Goldeneye was finally getting a re-release have been floating around by reputable sources in the years since Rare Replay's release.
Note: This was the guy that leaked an exact description of the Sonic Movie trailer. Note that the post predates the reveal of Banjo in Smash as well.
So could this finally be the time?
TL;DR: Former Rare employee uploaded multiple videos intended for Rare Replay about Goldeneye to his personal Youtube channel, at least one of which was worked on after the Compilation launched. Videos were quickly taken down after they were discovered, which alongside the evidence that they were seriously working on re-releasing it during this period. Implies that whatever plans they were doing might still be in the pipeline.
