GoldenEye 007 For N64 Is Now 100% Decompiled, Paving The Way For PC Ports

It's always exciting to report on the latest in game recompilation and decompilation efforts, and today I get to tell you that GoldenEye 007 was just completely decompiled for PC. The work took five years from KholdFuzion and his team, and releases based on it should be imminent. Just in case the modern releases on Nintendo Switch Online and Xbox Live or First Light weren't scratching your James Bond itch, GoldenEye 007 should soon be playable better than ever on PC.

For those unfamiliar with past game decompilation or recompilation projects, let me explain what differentiates them from emulation. Basically, console emulation is inherently tied to the downsides of the original console hardware because that hardware is still being emulated. With a decompilation or a recompilation, all the game programming is converted to run agnostically, without overhead from emulating the hardware on top of the game.

Not only does this make tweaks like uncapped FPS or ultrawide FOV easy to add to decompiled or recompiled ports, it also greatly increases performance and reduces latency compared to traditional emulation methods. These projects are often still based on emulation ports in some way (i.e. most Xbox 360 recompilations are based partially on Xenia,) but the final result should be a native PC application that runs like you expect it to. More transformative mods for gameplay and graphics also become possible through recompilation or decompilation for PC.


Beyond PC porting enhancements and other functionality that come with game decompilation and recompilation projects, this also raises the possibility of GoldenEye 007 ports to unexpected platforms. One example hypothesized by ReCollect64 (spotted by Tom's Hardware) would be a port to the Dreamcast, citing an increase in N64-to-Dreamcast port projects including a Diddy Kong Racing port.