Miyamoto wanted GoldenEye 64 to be less violent, ‘shake hands’ with enemies

His influence ultimately had an impact

Years later and we’re still talking about GoldenEye 64 — that’s just how iconic it is.

Speaking at the GameCity Festival in Nottingham, ex-Rare employee Martin Hollis stated that originally, GoldenEye was going to be a much more violent game, with “beautifully rendered gore that would explode out.” Evidently at some point during development he obtained a fax from Nintendo’s own Shigeru Miyamoto, who suggested that there was “too much close-up killing,” and that “it would be nice, if at the end of the game, you got to shake hands with all your enemies in the hospital.”

You may laugh, but Hollis did have the utmost respect for Miyamoto, and still does, actually. He notes that he “studiously” tried to learn Nintendo’s brand while developing GoldenEye, and was influenced by Mario 64 to make the locales more open-ended. Hollis also states that Miyamoto was trying to implement “user-centric design,” which ultimately is a more player-friendly concept.

If you remotely love GoldenEye you should read the rest of the piece from The Guardian, which has some really interesting tidbits.

GoldenEye on N64: Miyamoto wanted to tone down the killing [The Guardian]