For those not in the know, there’s been a HUGE leak of Nintendo code from the N64 era (“Gigaleak”). What does that mean?
Posted by
Mop (aka rburriel)
Jul 28 '20, 22:23
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The original source code as well as development code for a number of Nintendo games from that era are now in the public and Nintendo doesn’t seem to be acting very proactively to have to reigned in. The significance is that we can now look at the source code, for instance, of Mario 64 where one hacker discovered that, yes indeed, Luigi had been modeled for the game, but never integrated into the game. Others have discovered (compiled, played, recorded, and published videos of) unreleased/unused areas in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
For folks into emulation, this means we can now have games compiled from the original source code and optimized for emulation, with better/improved integration with modern systems, controllers, and displays.
But this has also sparked a resurgence in the search for the holy grail of missing games, Ura Zelda, the Ocarina of Time add-on that was supposed to be released on the 64DD. No one has yet proven it exists in any truly playable fashion (and Nintendo has alleged in the past that Ura Zelda was no big deal and that parts of it were used into Majora’s Mask) but gamers and hackers continue to hold out hope for a playable add-on to Ocarina of Time. (Many would also love to see the Earthbound 64 add-on discovered.)
The hack (referred to as the “Gigaleak”) continues to be released in waves, and not all the released code has yet been explored, so there’s still much more to come.
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