Shigeru Miyamoto Thought GoldenEye 007 Was Too Violent, Says Ex-Rare Employee

Famed producer and game designer Shigeru Miyamoto apparently wasn’t a fan of GoldenEye 007‘s violence, according to former Rare employee Martin Hollis. During an interview at this year’s GameCity, Hollis – who was the co-designer for the game – stated that not only did Miyamoto have reservations about the GoldenEye’s violence, but that early versions were far more gory and graphic than the final release.

Bond is a violent franchise and making that fit with Nintendo, which is very much family-friendly, was a challenge. For a while we had some gore, it was just a flipbook of about 40 textures, beautifully rendered gore that would explode out. When I saw it the first time, I thought it was awesome, it was a fountain of blood, like that moment in the Shining when the lift doors open. Then I thought, hmm, this might be a bit too much red.

Hollis then continues to explain how Miyamoto contacted him and the rest of the team to voice his concerns over too much “close-up killing”:

One point was that there was too much close-up killing – he found it a bit too horrible. I don’t think I did anything with that input. The second point was, he felt the game was too tragic, with all the killing. He suggested that it might be nice if, at the end of the game, you got to shake hands with all your enemies in the hospital.

Well damn, if only that proposed ending had ended up being included in the final version. Miyamoto and Hollis must have eventually come to a mutual agreement on the matter, though, as Hollis explains how the end credits for the game listed all the characters and their actors in an effort to show “people that this was not real killing.”