Germany removes GoldenEye N64, BloodRayne and BloodRayne 2 from blacklist

After 24 years, the German Bundeszentrale für Kinder- und Jugendmedienschutz has removed the Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye 007 from its banned list of media that would be harmful to children and young people. BloodRayne and BloodRayne 2 are also no longer banned.

The German Eurogamer reports that GoldenEye 007 has disappeared from the Indizierung of the German government service after 24 years. The English version of BloodRayne and the American version of BloodRayne 2 are also no longer on the list.

The Indizierung is a list of books, films, games and other media that have been banned under the German Jugendschutzgesetz, among other things, because they are harmful to young people. Among other things, media on the list may not be advertised or sold openly. These are games released before 2002. Then the law was changed so that games, like in many other countries, are subject to an age restriction and can no longer be indexed by the Bundeszentrale. Existing indexations will remain in place for a maximum of 25 years after the indexation before they are re-evaluated. The games are therefore not automatically removed from the list, but manually removed.

For GoldenEye 007, a game that came out in 1997 for the Nintendo 64, that indexing was due to expire next year. Eurogamer reports that it has been removed from the list before, possibly due to a release for Nintendo Switch Online. Since October, there has been an online extension to the subscription service for the Switch that gives access to a number of Nintendo 64 and Mega Drive games. The big absentee is GoldenEye 007.

BloodRayne and BloodRayne 2 have also been taken off the list, just as work is underway on remasters of the two titles, which will be released in November for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch under the title BloodRayne: ReVamped. That is why Eurogamer does not think it unlikely that GoldenEye 007 would also come to the Switch.