Coders have successfully decompiled The Legend of Zelda: Orcarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has been decompiled

A team of coders has managed to successfully decompile Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, recreating the game’s source code in a way that is editable by users.

This source code for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was decompiled in a clean room manner. The coders behind this decompilation project have clearly documented the tools and processes used to decompile Ocarina of Time, giving Nintendo no legal right to take their decompiled source code offline. The coders behind this Legend of Zelda recompilation created code that allowed them to reproduce the original game. This was done without using leaked source code, or using any of Nintendo’s copyrighted assets. 

With source code for The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, coders can now freely edit and modify the game’s source code. This will allow users to do several things. This includes modding the game, creating new versions of the game, porting the game to new platforms, and re-optimising the game to make it run better on N64 hardware. The possibilities are endless.

A similar example of N64 decompilation is the Super Mario 64 decompilation project, which facilitated the creation of ports of the game for PC and other platforms. This decompilation eventually led to the creation of a version of Super Mario 64 that could utilise hardware accelerated ray tracing on PC, and versions that could run at higher frame rates, at higher resolution textures, and with higher quality models.

Ocarina of Time’s decompilation project has only hit 100% with a Master Quest Debug version of the game. Ocarina of Time has over a dozen different versions, and the team behind the game’s decompilation project plans to decompile all versions of the game.

Aside from decompiling other versions of Ocarina of Time, more work needs to be done to document and re-organise the code of the game’s currently decompiled version. This effort will make it easier for others to use and modify the game’s code. This should make it easier for modders to create gameplay mods for Ocarina of Time, expand the game, or randomise the title. 

While their work is far from complete, this successful decompilation is a major milestone for the team behind this project. More information about this project is available on GitHub and the Zelda64.dev website.

Read more about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time getting decompiled on the OC3D Forums.