Cited as one of the greatest video games of all time, Perfect Dark is unfortunately rather difficult to find these days. Unless you're lucky enough to own an N64 console and have a copy of the original game, or have access to the remastered port on Xbox Live Arcade, then chances are you might never have played Rare's spiritual successor to GoldenEye 007.
Thanks to coder Ryan Dwyer, however, it looks like the classic FPS title may well be receiving unofficial PC ports in the future (thanks, VGC). Dwyer has successfully decompiled both NTSC versions of Perfect Dark, including the launch version and a later re-release that stamped out a number of bugs.
Full details can be viewed over on the project page on GitLab, but the decompilation will effectively allow modders to legally port the game over to PC along with additional features like higher frame rate and resolution. The same was recently achieved with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which itself received a PC port back in March of this year, complete with subsequent mods and refinements.
It's early days, of course, but a potential PC port of Perfect Dark is music to our ears. If nothing else, it will theoretically introduce a new audience to the seminal title, complete with all sorts of quality-of-life adjustments. We'll be keeping a close eye on how this one develops.
Are you up for a potential PC port of Perfect Dark, or would you rather just see it on the Switch? Share your thoughts in the usual place.
[source gitlab.com, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 41
Not sure if I would consider it difficult to find since it is included in Rare Replay on the Xbox Marketplace, but it will be interesting to see what comes out of this.
A bit superfluous. The Rare Replay version is readily accessible and plays perfectly. I would be interested though if someone created a campaign that doesn't completely fall flat after an amazing first act like the original. It'd be great if a lesser known title like Body Harvest got this treatment.
Oh thats great!
Can't wait to play it on my PC/TV without the Need of a Console.
It's not just PC ports, it'll be modded Wii/Wii U/Switch/3DS ports as well.. with a stable frame rate!
I got hold of the RomHack Goldeneye X, which is Goldeneye 64 using Perfect Dark's engine.
It was never complete, but from what I've played, the Perfect Dark enhancements are awesome. Like to see something like that.
People on the internet make so many crazy projects, when they are going to decompile Superman 64, and not only port to PC, but also make a bunch of changes to fix all the problems and make the game good? They could even call some people who worked on the original to help.
Once again, it would be great if projects like this were legal, with copyright laws being revised, to make sure more works of media could enter the public domain and become free to share and modify, with current laws, there will be no public domain videogames until 2067 except for donations.
In USA there used to be a renewal option, copyright lasted 28 years, but you could ask for 28 more, and just once, most people never came back to renew because they didn't care or died, allowing many unused works to be free for everyone to use, then movie and music companies, and most famously, the one that has a mouse as a mascot, changed copyright laws especially because they wanted to keep the mouse for longer, and instead of adding the option of renewing twice, they killed the renew option and now it's 95 years, applying even to those books, movies and games that are out of print for decades and aren't making any money, they won't try more changes, the mouse is ours in 2024, but the damage is done.
As others have mentioned, Perfect Dark, and in fact an even better version than the original, is readily available on XBox. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft chased up some legal action here.
[Checks Xbox Cloud Steaming on phone]
Found it. That wasn’t so hard.
This is great news.
Already been playing it 60fps with mouse and keyboard controls via the 1964 emulator however.
But still neat!
@Switch_Pro As mentioned everytine someone says this, just like the Mario 64 and Ocarina decomp projects this is legal and as you have to provide your own assets there is no grounds for any legal action
I'm super confused as to how this is deemed legal, wouldn't Microsoft or Rare still own the copyright? It's effectively just copying their work.
Someone needs to put all these ports on 3ds lol. But I've never played this game before, I'll try it out when the time comes
Created a website to seperate this stuff and still dog the place with it!
I'd love to play Perfect Dark again. In a version with stable framerate. I wish Rare Replay was available for a machine I actually have.
@Coalescence @Bucky That version isn't on PC, thus not 'superfluous' to make a PC port.
And because this is a PC port, we may see modders go even further with the mods, graphics, gameplay tweaks, etc, that put it far above any other available versions.
GOTTA SAY:
This isn't exactly any more -legal- than emulating is.
Not if one were to distribute it.
Any player would still need to personally own a licensed copy of the game and provide their own assets.
And even the code, also in decompiled form, is a copyright of the creator/owner.
THAT SAID:
What a tremendous effort!
Decompiling late-era N64 code is not something I'd personally want to have to do in a million years.
Looking forward to seeing where the community will take it from here.
I'm also very excited about having one of the greatest games ever much more readily available for study, allowing us all to get smarter as developers, designers, or just general enjoyers of games.
@victordamazio There is literally nothing in Superman 64 worth salvaging.
How is Perfect Dark difficult to find when there's literally three generations of Xbox consoles that you can get the game on right now? Or you can just emulate it on PC already. 🤷♂️
I've been playing around in Perfect Dark again recently as I impatiently wait for GoldenEye!
@Coalescence The only problem is Body Harvest really didn't have very great gameplay. It was an interesting attempt at early 3D gaming though.
I can finally play it with a framerrate higher than 10
Yeah I've it on N64 bought recently enough as its never been a pricey game or hard to find one for the n64 here, have on Xbox store since 360 days, its included also in rare replay and both are on gamepass to so can also stream on pc too no? So rather difficult, is a massive stretch here.
It's available on Xbox - that's about as easy as it gets to find!
Agree it's a shame it's not on Switch though... but perhaps it will follow in GoldenEye footsteps one day.
Cool, Banjoo kazoie is next, I think the project is at the 91% of the process.
@Pod They'll do precisely what the Mario 64 decompilations and Ocarina do. Require the person to own a ROM. Whether ripped from their own cart and legally backed up, or otherwise, is none of their business as long as they don't distribute it. All actual assets come from there. None of Nintendo's/Rare's code is used by what they release.
Emulation is legal without copyrighted code, also. This is precisely as legal.
@Milenko This is why I'm excited.
"It's available to play on the last 3 generations of xbox" - sure, but that would mean having an xbox, and not everyone is willing to make that sacrifice.
@wonderclassic
That's what I said.
It's precisely as legal. Not any MORE legal.
Which is why it felt weird to me to bring up the legality in the article.
I've been sailing the Ship of Harkinian and it's absolutely superior to what NSO offers, can't wait to see the same treatment with this one.
sweet! i can't wait for the ultrawide version of this game.
mario and zelda have been a blast playing in ultrawide
Because Nintendo-won’t or likely Ninten-can’t I got this on my Steam Deck and it holds up very nicely
@Pod Legality shmegality it is a 25+ year old game lol.
A developer knows after due time their games will be available for free in some way either by their own hand or others.
@Jokerwolf
Oh sure. I'm not going to be the keeper of morality on this one. ^^
@Pod No worries, I will keep up the good fight and continue to inform people that games are indeed an art form meant to be experience.
My motto is support current platforms but older platforms are fair game within reason.
@Rob3008 No you're just porting it to a different platform. As long as you don't distribute it, I don't think there's any legal grounds by which to sanction. Similar to how making a rom file out of your legally purchased N64 game isn't illegal.
The purpose here is to make the game run better, add QoL improvements, mods, user-made content. If companies feel this takes away potential revenue, the best way to combat it is to offer an alternative. The music industry did it with streaming services. But with gaming there are more technical issues and volunteers have shown more dedication than companies. Nintendo's own emulation just hasn't been up to par, really lacking at times. One should it expect it to be, as you're paying a fair price. Most people would still gladly choose a paid version for ease of use, but even availability has been an issue. And often games aren't transferrable from one console to the next, meaning you have to keep repurchasing the same games. Not really fair, is it?
Nintendo would't allow modding anyway as they're a notoriously restrictive company. That was a cool part of 90's pc gaming, when the industry wasn't yet so hyper commercialized.
@wonderclassic "None of Nintendo's/Rare's code is used by what they release." Oh right, hadn't thought of that.
@victordamazio Ironic since that mouse company got very wealthy off of folk tales in the public domain. Chalk it up under greed.
@F-ZeroX Not just folk tales, but also public domain books with a known author and from a time copyright laws already existed but the deadline was much shorter.
@victordamazio Mickey Mouse is a trademark. Disney never has to worry about losing control over him as long as they exist. It's specifically the "Steamboat Willie" cartoon that Disney has stalled from entering the public domain.
@Jokerwolf No, you're not automatically entitled to experience any kind of art form!
While this particular project is technically legal as long as it doesn't include the ROM itself (although it still encourages illegal ROM downloads), if an art form is no longer legally available or beyond your means to legally acquire that is not yet in the public domain, then you must go without being able to experience it until/if one of those factors changes.
@BulbasaurusRex Digital art/software will never be subject to the same rules, as long as you aren't selling copyrighted material in most places you are good to experience them.
Just because a small loud minority are against it doesn't mean everyone is, if you have the ability to play a game from 30 years ago and your only option is emulation it is just fine in most of the world.
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