Perfect Dark and Banjo-Kazooie could be the next N64 PC ports
Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask are among a number of N64 ‘decompilation’ projects currently in development that could eventually lead to full PC ports.
More than 20 such projects are currently being worked on by fan groups, following the high profile completion of two major N64 endeavours.
An unofficial PC port of Nintendo 64 classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was completed and released online on Tuesday, following Super Mario 64 in 2019, following the completion of similar fan reverse-engineering projects.
Now developers are working on projects for a host of other N64 games, with Perfect Dark seemingly being one closest to completion.
Much like the Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, these decompilation projects involve the painstaking work of reverse-engineering the original games into compilable C code – which can take years – after which teams can quickly port them to playable PC versions with new features and full mod support.
Players often have to provide their own legally-sourced N64 ROM for these games to work – the software then takes those assets (such as character models, audio and textures) and combines them with the code to create a native PC version.
The belief is that this helps shield the projects somewhat from legal ramifications. Reverse engineering projects such as these are technically made legal because the fans involved do not use any leaked content or copyrighted assets.
Because the more than 20 decompilation projects currently ongoing are all being handled by different developers, not all have a clear indication of how much progress is being made. Some developers have been more forthcoming with this information, however.
For example, a decompilation of
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