GoldenEye 007

N64 · Agent (individual level and full-game) · 1997

Current WR

53" (Dam, Agent)

First Known Run

~1:15 (Dam, Agent)

GoldenEye 007 developed one of the most competitive individual-level speedrun communities in any game, with the top players rivalling each other across all twenty missions on three difficulty settings.

GoldenEye 007's speedrun community formed around the game's built-in mission timer rather than external recording — players would post screenshot times to websites, later verified through video evidence as camera technology improved. The game's AI scripting and object interaction created a web of "Bond Tricks" — unintended behaviours such as using a remote mine explosion to boost Bond through a wall, or using the look-around function to manipulate guard line-of-sight. The competitive scene generated a small but intense community of world-class players who competed simultaneously across sixty individual level-difficulty combinations, making GoldenEye speedrunning uniquely spreadsheet-oriented. Key figures including Illu, Ace, and Goose have maintained records and rivalries spanning over two decades.

Famous Techniques:

Boost — detonating a remote mine adjacent to Bond to use blast knockback for crossing gaps or skipping trigger zones
Look-Around Manipulation — using the C-button look function mid-stride to alter Bond's collision geometry and clip through thin walls
Guard Skipping — routing through areas at angles that keep Bond outside enemy line-of-sight cones, avoiding combat triggers entirely
Door Cancel — entering a door animation and immediately cancelling it to reset a door's state and pass through during the frame window

Notable Runners:

Illu (Henrik Nystrom) — Swedish player considered the greatest GoldenEye speedrunner of all time, holding records across multiple difficulties simultaneously
Ace — top-tier UK runner who held numerous facility and surface records and drove the competitive rivalry with Illu through the 2000s and 2010s
Goose — Australian runner who contributed significant records on later-game levels and helped standardise video verification practices

Key Facts:

GoldenEye records were originally shared via screenshot with no video verification; the community later retroactively videoed older records
The spreadsheet tracking all sixty mission-difficulty combinations is called the "Elite" leaderboard and has been maintained since the late 1990s
No major glitch equivalent to a wrong warp exists, so records are separated by fractions of a second and require near-perfect execution
The rival Perfect Dark community uses identical competitive structure, with many players competing across both games simultaneously