Great news for fans of Goldeneye, the amazing independent port of it to Valve’s Source engine is alive and well, after a hiatus since its beta release. For those that haven’t yet played it, Goldeneye: Source aims to re-create and enhance the genre-defining Nintendo 64 game, Goldeney, created by Rare back in 1997.

The beta stage is often a make-or-break state for a third-party modification. Many mods are released up to beta, and while become popular… never reach another milestone release. Mods are a great way for talented game designers to get their foot well in the door of the business… but once the beta is finished, there are clear diminishing returns to the effort put into the release. A stable beta can be shown to potential employers as basically a finished work.

The good news of the day, is that the GE: Source team has posted an update on their forums, confirming the modification is still in-development. The team reports that most of the weapons are completed, and that new maps have been finished.

The main delay at this point, according to the team, is the delay of Valve’s Half-Life 2: Episode 2 SDK. Without the SDK, they cannot utilize the latest improvements to the Source engine (added in Episode 2). They are using the time to work on enhancing the game to be even closer to the original, with improvements such as dual-wielding.