“I don’t think Nintendo will tolerate this, but I’m very happy”: Star Fox 64 developer approved a fan port of the cult game on PC

Following The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (2022) and Majora’s Mask (2023), modding team Harbor Masters has released an unofficial PC port of another classic Nintendo 64 game.

Image source: Nintendo

We are talking about the cult rail shooter Star Fox 64 (aka Lylat Wars in Europe) from 1997, which was a restart of the original Star Fox from the SNES four years ago (1993).

The port of Star Fox 64 on PC is called Starship and has a number of improvements compared to the N64 version: increased resolution and frame rate, anti-aliasing, texture filtering, support for ultra-wide monitors.

Comparison of the new and original versions of the game

Like other unofficial ports, Starship was the result of months of work by enthusiasts who successfully reverse-engineered the original N64 game into readable code.

Technically, Starship does not violate any laws, since the creators of the port did not use leaked content or copyrighted materials. Moreover, a supported copy of the game is required to run on PC.

The release of Starship opens the way for mods with high-resolution textures, ray tracing and other improvements

Star Fox 64 lead character designer Takaya Imamura, who worked at Nintendo until 2021, commented on the release: “I don’t think Nintendo will tolerate this, but I’m very happy [about this event].”

Despite being one of Nintendo’s most recognizable franchises, Star Fox hasn’t seen a new release since 2015, when Star Fox Zero was released on the Nintendo Wii U to mixed reviews.