During a speech made in 2004, Martin Hollis from Rare revealed that GoldenEye 007 was expected to fail miserably upon launch, after a poor reception at E3. Not only was the game a first-person shooter on a console system (unheard of at the time), it was also a movie license (which were frequently garbage) and was being released over two years after the actual movie came out. The game went on to become the best-selling game on the N64, beating Mario Kart 64, Super Mario 64, and Ocarina of Time.

The sky in the beta version of Surface 1 was originally white and cloudless, which gave the impression that it was snowing.

The watch Bond wears actually tells time, and counts constantly regardless if the game is paused or not.

Goldeneye was originally going to be an on-rails shooter before making the jump to full player control.

During development, the Silo mission was originally slated to be a Casino level to tie-in better with the movie. Various items can be found though the games code such as a gold bar, a token, and money.

The theme music of the level "Frigate" features parts taken from the theme of the James Bond film "A View to a Kill" by Duran Duran, and other parts inspired by the song "We Care A Lot" by Faith No More.

Alec Trevelyan is seen being right-handed in all solo missions except for "Control".

A placeholder model for objects that were not finished yet is still in the game. Strangely, it is a Borg cube from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The game's entire multiplayer mode was made in a month as a complete afterthought by programmer Steve Ellis. The management at Rare did not even know they were developing a multiplayer mode until they were shown a complete, working product. According to Ellis, 'since the game was already late by that time, if we hadn't done it that way, it probably never would have happened.'

According to Martin Hollis of Rare, the concept of adding multiple objectives per level was inspired by the level design of Super Mario 64.

There's a hidden test level called "Citadel" found in the game's coding. It was designed during the early stages of multiplayer and had it been functional in the finished game, Oddjob and Mayday wouldn't have been available to play.

The level can only be accessed through the use of a cheat device. As an obvious test level, however, there are numerous glitches which prevent it from being properly playable.

Many of the levels in the game were first designed without any objective set in mind. Only after the levels were created did the designers go back and try to decide the player's starting positions, enemy locations, and objective placements. This is the reason many levels in the game seem to have rooms or areas without any obvious purpose. According to Martin Hollis of Rare,

The Terrorist multiplayer character cannot be found anywhere in the single player game. However, the instruction manual for the game lists the Phantom weapon as a 'terrorist favorite', and the Phantom is only found on the Frigate level. The Frigate level is also the only level with hostages, which would likely indicate the involvement of terrorists. This suggests that the Terrorist was once used as an enemy on the Frigate, but was removed and kept in multiplayer.

If the player hurries through the Dam level quickly enough, they will be able to see a guard walking through the first set of security gates. Since he's animated on a pre-set path, he'll actually ignore Bond until he reaches his destination, at which point he'll react and start shooting.

The Japanese version curiously removes the hunting knife weapon, which in other versions is only available through the use of cheat codes. Instead, the Japanese version has a cheat code that gives Bond a paired rocket launcher and sniper rifle (with full ammo for each weapon). When using the two weapons together, the sniper rifle's adjustable scope can be used. Unlike the 2x weapon cheats, each weapon can also be used separately.

Originally the violence in the game was to be more graphic with "beautifully" rendered gore that would explode, but the game's director, Martin Hollis, thought it later to be a bit too much.

The version of GoldenEye 007 that was released was technically a ROM hack of the version submitted to Nintendo for final certification. While the game was undergoing said last-minute testing, an issue was discovered with the game's memory that caused glitches in the textures featured in the Frigate level. To combat this, programmer Mark Edmonds wrote a tool to extract the game's code and data from the ROM, adjusted the hex values in the game's memory to improve the performance in the level, recompressed it, and directly added it back into the ROM image without recompiling. This version was sent back to Nintendo and certified for release as the final version of the game.

GoldenEye 007 was originally planned to be included in Rare Replay, even going so far as having two "Rare Revealed" documentary videos produced that focused on the making of the game and cut content, but was scrapped due to licensing issues. These videos would later be leaked online in 2019 by a former Rare employee, and the game would eventually be re-released separately in 2023, with owners of the digital release of Rare Replay being gifted the game free of charge.

As of 2023, only 4 licensed IP adapted games have been released on Nintendo's retro game digital download services: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES on Wii (which was later delisted on January 26, 2012), Transformers: Mystery of Convoy for NES on Wii, Quest for Camelot for Game Boy Color and GoldenEye 007 for N64, the latter two being on Switch.

Additionally, J.J. & Jeff, Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream, and Super Mario Bros. 2, all reskins of licensed titles, have been available in their license-less formats.

While rendezvousing with Valentin in the Statue level, a guard outside can be seen running past the boxcar some distance away. This soldier actually does nothing; if you follow him, he will ignore everything (including you) and will disappear at the bottom of the hill.