If you close your eyes and listen to the muffled thud of a silenced PP7 or the rhythmic clacking of a guard's boots on a concrete floor, you're probably back in 1997. Most of us are. We spent thousands of hours staring at a four-way split-screen TV, squinting through the vaseline-smeared lens of the Nintendo 64. That specific feeling—the chunky textures, the stiff but satisfying aiming, the way the music shifts when a camera spots you—is exactly what Agent 64: Spies Never Die captures. It isn't just a "retro-inspired" game. It is a time machine.
Replay Software isn't just making a parody. They’re building a faithful evolution of a genre that basically died when dual-analog sticks became the industry standard. Honestly, it’s kind of wild that it took this long for someone to nail the specific "Euroshooter" vibe of Rare’s golden era.
Why Agent 64: Spies Never Die Hits Different
The game doesn't try to look like a modern shooter with a 1990s skin. It feels authentic because it mimics the technical limitations of the era. You’ve got the low-poly character models that look like they’re made of cardboard boxes. The textures have that signature blur. Even the way the enemies react to being shot—stumbling backward with a dramatic, slightly robotic flair—is a direct love letter to GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark.
But it’s more than aesthetics.
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Modern shooters are obsessed with "realism" and "live service" loops. Agent 64: Spies Never Die focuses on the objective-based mission structure that made the 64-bit era so addictive. You don't just run to the end of a corridor. You have to photograph top-secret documents, plant tracking bugs, and escape before the countdown hits zero. If you play on higher difficulties, the game doesn't just make enemies tougher; it adds more objectives. It forces you to actually explore the level. You'll find yourself checking every corner of a gray, brutalist bunker just to find a specific keycard, and weirdly, it feels better than any modern waypoint marker.
The Feel of the Gunplay
Controls are usually where these retro projects fall apart. They’re either too clunky to be fun or too smooth to feel "retro."
Agent 64: Spies Never Die finds a weirdly perfect middle ground. It supports modern mouse and keyboard setups, obviously, which makes you feel like a god-tier secret agent compared to the old N64 controller. But the weight is still there. There is a deliberate snappiness to the auto-aim (if you choose to use it) that feels exactly like the old lock-on mechanics.
The arsenal is essentially a "greatest hits" of 90s spy cinema. You have the "Stinger" (the silenced pistol), various submachine guns that roar with a compressed, lo-fi audio quality, and sniper rifles that have that iconic, slightly laggy zoom. The sound design is a huge part of the E-E-A-T here—it’s clear the developers spent a lot of time sampling the specific "crunch" of 90s sound chips.
Levels, Lore, and the "John Weez" Factor
The protagonist, John Weez, is a retired agent pulled back into the fray. It’s a classic setup. The story doesn't take itself too seriously, which is a relief. It leans into the campiness of Cold War-era espionage. You’ll find yourself infiltrating high-tech facilities, secret underground bases, and snowy outposts.
One of the standout features is the level design philosophy. In many modern games, levels are "tubes" designed to keep you moving forward. In Agent 64: Spies Never Die, the levels are "playgrounds." They are non-linear spaces where you can tackle objectives in various orders. This creates a high level of replayability. You might finish a mission in five minutes on "Normal," but spend forty-five minutes on "Special Agent" trying to figure out how to disable the security grid without alerting the entire floor.
It’s also worth mentioning the modding potential. The developers have been vocal about supporting the community, and we're already seeing a lot of interest in custom maps. This is vital. The longevity of the original 90s shooters came from the community’s ability to push the engine to its limits.
The Technical Reality of Retro-Engineering
Is it perfect? No.
Kinda like the games it mimics, the AI can be a bit... predictable. Guards will occasionally stand still while you shoot their buddies, or they'll run in a straight line toward your gunfire. But here’s the thing: that’s part of the charm. If the AI was too smart, it wouldn't feel like a 1997 shooter. It would feel like F.E.A.R. or Splinter Cell. There is a specific rhythm to "cheesing" the AI in these games that fans actually enjoy.
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The performance is rock solid, as you'd expect from a game designed to look like it runs on 4MB of RAM. You don't need a 4090 to run this. You could probably run it on a toaster, which makes it perfect for the Steam Deck. Playing this handheld is arguably the "correct" way to experience it; it mimics that feeling of hunkering down over a small screen back in the day.
How to Get the Most Out of Agent 64: Spies Never Die
If you're jumping in, don't just blast through on the easiest setting. You’ll finish the game in an hour and feel cheated. The soul of this game is in the difficulty spikes.
- Start on a higher difficulty than you think you need. The extra objectives are the "real" game.
- Learn the "strafe-run." Moving diagonally is still faster, just like in the old days. It’s a mechanical quirk the devs kept in because they know their audience.
- Interact with the environment. A lot of the world is destructible in that satisfying, "shattering glass and exploding barrels" kind of way.
- Check the Steam Workshop. Once you finish the base missions, the community-made levels are where the real challenge lies.
Agent 64: Spies Never Die proves that "outdated" mechanics aren't actually bad—they’re just a different style of play that the industry abandoned too quickly. It’s a focused, nostalgic, and incredibly fun slice of action that reminds us why we fell in love with shooters in the first place.
Next Steps for Players:
Download the demo available on Steam to test the control schemes. If you’re a purist, look into the "1.2" control layout options in the settings to see if you can handle the original single-stick movement style. Once you’ve cleared the first few missions, head over to the community forums to find the most popular custom-level packs for a genuine challenge beyond the main campaign. Keep an eye on the official Replay Software social channels for updates on the level editor, as that will likely be the feature that gives this game a ten-year lifespan.