A modder has managed to decompile the original Nintendo 64 classic FPS Perfect Dark, which means others could come along and build the game for PC. There are already said to be a number of fans working on at least 20 N64 ports, which include such hits as Paper Mario, Turok 3, Pokémon Stadium, and Conker's Bad Fur Day, the wholly risqué take on the ordinarily cute adventure platformer genre. In essence, it sounds like a bunch of people are keen to make these retro releases available outside their intended system.
As for the game in question, Perfect Dark is currently being rebooted with Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain studio Crystal Dynamics at the helm. However, a report last month said there's been little update on how development is going, with Head of Microsoft Studios Matt Booty saying that Xbox is not overly concerned with work on the project. In the meantime, fans can only reminisce about the original N64 release, which came out in 2000. And while there have been additional entries in the series since, none have quite scratched that itch the way the classic Rare title did back in the day.
This is where modder Ryan Dwyer may be coming to the rescue, as they've managed to reverse-engineer the original Perfect Dark, making the files available on GitHub. According to PCGamer, this means other people from the modding community could potentially make the game playable in its original iteration on PC. Dwyer does say in the description on the download page that users must have a Perfect Dark ROM, but outside of that, it looks as though anyone with the right knowledge can tinker with the source code to create a port.
Whether there will be any legal issues to contend with, especially from Nintendo, cannot be said at this stage, but Dwyer may have to be careful about this project. After all, there was an incident last year when Grand Theft Auto fans were sued by Take-Two, with the publisher taking umbrage over the fact that GTA 3 and Vice City were being reverse-engineered. Hopefully, it won't come to that though.
Perfect Dark is easily considered one of the best first-person shooter games of the N64 era, almost on par with GoldenEye 007, with the former essentially being a spiritual successor to the latter. Whether anyone will actually come along and make something of Dwyer's reverse-engineered project remains to be seen, but there could be something exciting on the horizon for those who have been wanting to relive the classic antics of Joanna Dark.
Perfect Dark is in development.