An unofficial PC port of Nintendo 64 classic Star Fox 64 has been released.
Created by Harbour Masters, the same fan team behind 2022’s Ocarina of Time PC port and this year’s Majora’s Mask port, ‘Starship’ allows those with legal game ROMs to play Star Fox 64 with modern settings, such as higher frame rates and in ultra-widescreen resolutions.
Star Fox 64: now on PC, thanks to an unofficial port.https://t.co/YZULlJdrqw pic.twitter.com/q684NpU49p
Like other fan port projects, this is the result of months of work from Harbour Masters’ team of fan engineers, who successfully reverse-engineered the original N64 game into readable code.
Reverse engineering projects such as these are technically made legal because the developers involved do not use any leaked content or copyrighted assets. They also require players to provide their own legally-sourced ROMs for them to work.
Harbour Masters’ Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask ports eventually led to significant mods featuring HD textures, ray-tracing, HD models, and more.
Original Star Fox programmer Dylan Cuthbert told VGC last year that he’s sure the series will return in the future.
Despite being one of Nintendo‘s most recognisable brands, there hasn’t been a new Star Fox game in eight years – the last was Star Fox Zero on Wii U, which was met with a mixed critical response.
“Oh, I’m sure [it’ll return]”, Cuthbert told us. “I mean, they keep trying, don’t they? They keep trying, not quite achieving the original.
“But I think that’s one thing – my opinion is that the original was born out of the UK Amiga-style 3D at the time, games like Star Glider or Carrier Command. It was born out of those and a bit of the Star Wars Arcade game, combined with Namco’s Starblade.
“And then there was all the Nintendo character building, all the characters and stuff, making it very family friendly.”
PC
Nintendo 64
Wii U
Star Fox
Dylan Cuthbert
Andy Robinson