Ever since Super Mario 64 was ported to PC in the early 2020s, PC ports of classic Nintendo 64 titles have only gotten more and more common. There’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which got a port in the form of Ship of Harkinian. There’s Star Fox 64, which got a port by the name of Starship: Centauri Alfa. Heck, even Sonic Unleashed got a fan-made PC port, despite originally being for the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360!
Now, it seems Banjo-Kazooie is the latest in line to get one. Named Banjo: Recompiled and available over on GitHub, the project ports the entirety of the original game to PC, complete with a slew of new features and additions. Here’s the trailer if you haven’t seen it already:
As you can tell, there’s a lot here. The game runs at 1080p resolution and 60fps, as expected for a PC port like this. You can now remap the controls and various quality of life options, like whether notes are automatically saved upon being collected (as in the Xbox 360 versions). You can easily add texture packs, mods and other assets, letting you customise the game to your liking…
Heck, they’ve even made sure some popular existing mods are compatible with this release now too, like Mark Kurko’s Jiggies of Time and Nostalgia 64 hacks! So, if you want to experience some of the community’s best custom levels and games, you can now do that on PC rather than through an emulator. It’s all very convenient if we do say so ourselves!
As for the chances it’ll get taken down or DMCAed? Eh, not very high in this case. Rare is a lot more chill about fanworks than Nintendo ever was, and the project requires a copy of the original ROM to run anyway. They’ve done their best to avoid any and all legal issues here, and we see no trouble on that front going forward.
Regardless, Banjo-Kazooie can now be played natively on PC thanks to Banjo: Recompiled, and it’s by far the definitive way to experience the game too. Definitely check it out if you’re a big Banjo-Kazooie fan, or need a new way to experience the community’s many mods and ROM hacks!
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