Thanks to the magic of decompilation projects, PC ports of classic Nintendo games are getting more common than ever. From Super Mario 64 to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Mario Kart 64 to Star Fox 64, all manner of popular titles have been natively ported to PC.
And now, it seems Animal Crossing has joined the club. Why? Because the original* GameCube game has now been ported to PC too!
Here’s a video about it from Video Game Esoterica:
As well as the GitHub repo for the port itself:
Animal Crossing PC Port (GitHub)
It’s an interesting setup too. Indeed, while new features are fairly thin on the ground right now, all the expected technical updates have been made here. The game can run in 4K or widescreen, you can easily modify the game’s textures by sticking replacements in a certain folder, and you can import save files from the original game via the Dolphin emulator too.
So, it seems to be the definitive version in many ways. It’s certainly a lot more customisable than the GameCube version ever was.
That said, there is one thing we’re a bit uneasy about. AI was supposedly used in coding this project.
And to be honest? We’re surprised it’d work so well here. Sure, we’ve tested it for coding purposes before, like with WordPress plugins and browser extensions, so we do know that AI can handle some programming tasks.
But a PC port of a GameCube game based on a decomp seems like a weird AI use case to us. It feels like there wouldn’t be enough source material or context to use it here. Using it for a React project works because there are thousands of repos and documentation pages for the framework online. GameCube game decomps aren’t in the same league there.
There are also some ethical questions there too. Yeah, generative AI is a lot more commonly accepted for programming tasks compared to art or creative ones, but the power and environmental issues are still present at the moment nonetheless. So, we wouldn’t blame anyone for being hesitant to try the project on that basis.
We’re also curious what other projects may be built on top of this too. Every PC port up until now has kicked off a modding community in some sense or another, and for those that already had them, it’s opened things up more than ever. So, there’s a possibility that Animal Crossing mods may become somewhat commonplace in future. That things fans liked from the later games may now be possible to port to the original, like how Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom elements were remade for Ocarina of Time.
Regardless, Animal Crossing now has a PC port, and the future is open for all sorts of crazy mods and hacks too. So, what do you think? Are you excited to try it out? What do you think the future of the modding scene could be like now the game runs on PC?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below, or on our Discord server today.
Sources:
- Animal Crossing PC Port is Out Now (Video Game Esoterica)
- Animal Crossing PC Port (GitHub)
- Animal Crossing Decomp (GitHub)
* Yes, we know Animal Forest was a Nintendo 64 game first. But it’s the GameCube game that most of the world got first.