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In the 28 years that it's been consistently played, fans of 1997's GoldenEye 007 (sometimes just called GoldenEye N64) have had plenty of time to choose their preferred playable character. That said, there was a time when it looked like there would be even more options in the revolutionary first-person shooter multiplayer, specifically, that there would be even more James Bonds that a player could use as their avatar. And in a recent EGX panel, the GoldenEye developers explained exactly why the only Bond face we got in the game was Pierce Brosnan's:

The producers were worried Sean Connery's likeness would cost too much.

The topic came up at the GoldenEye 007: Meet the Devs Panel at EGX 2022, where developers Martin Hollis and Brett Jones took part in a retrospective and talkback regarding the James Bond game's nearly three-decade history. At one point in the discussion, Hollis touched on the pre-launch beta version of the game, which featured four playable James Bonds.

"We had four Bonds multiplayer," Hollis explained, "Which was pretty cool. Three of them had to come out."

Why? Well, in Hollis's own words: "The film people were concerned about how much Sean Connery would ask for." 

That's certainly a bummer, but fans should know that, even though they never got to play as a different bond in the original GoldenEye N64, the developers did at least test them out, setting up a few rounds of gameplay in the office before giving them the ax.

"Before taking them out," Hollis said, "We had a celebratory tournament that must have been really late in development. We said goodbye to them. [...] We gave them a good send-off."

Kind of a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. Oh, and in case you've gotten this far and figured out that the math here doesn't quite make sense - Pierce Brosnan was the fifth Bond, but the devs only had to ax three other versions - Hollis made it clear who was never even considered to be a part of the game.

"George Lazenby was never on there," he said.

You don't need to beat the game to prepare for the next one—here are all the major new and upcoming games coming our way.