GoldenEye
Image: Eon/MGM

Rare's 1997 first-person shooter Bond title, GoldenEye 007, has been successfully decompiled, marking an incredible new milestone for the game's community.

The news was revealed yesterday on the decompilation's progress website, with the tracker being updated to show 100% matching source code across all categories.

According to GoldenEye 007 fansite The GoldenEye Depot, the decompilation project began over 9 years ago under project lead Kholdfuzion but also includes the work of "dozens of people" from the earliest GoldenEye hackers to the latest contributors," such as Trevor, Bethany, AxDoomer, and Ryan Dwyer.

Inevitably, this has raised hopes online for an unofficial PC port, with some sources, such as the GoldenEye 007 YouTuber/World Champion Graslu00, calling AI ports "inevitable" after the announcement.

Earlier this year, we've already received an AI-assisted recomp of the cancelled Xbox 360 version of the game, with emulated graphics and audio.

This received positive write-ups and praise from retro YouTubers such as VideoGameEsoterica, but GoldenEye experts such as Graslu00 criticised it on release, claiming that "playing this recomp is nothing but experiencing the game in a much worse way than what you can achieve currently with Xenia Canary."

As a result, it appears the GoldenEye 007 community is making its own AI port this time, with Graslu00 suggesting that "a very dedicated member in the community" is working on his own AI port so the first one to release is "polished."

Understanding that this move will perhaps be controversial, Graslu00 states, "You're free to avoid this one or accept it until the eventual human-made recomp and PC port comes. It won't be broken like the ones we've seen previously since this is being curated by other dedicated players that know and understand the game."

He concluded, "Ultimately, now this means GoldenEye is open source (good) and anyone can work with it and release whatever they want. Again, let's just work together in highlighting the proper ports, not the flawed ones."