Are you a fan of Perfect Dark? Well, today’s a good day for you, because the FPS classic has now been fully decompiled. That means Perfect Dark PC ports and mods are now possible. Eventually, you can expect to see a Perfect Dark PC port like the ones that Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time received. That means that Perfect Dark should be available to play on PC in 4K (and beyond), in ultra-widescreen while also offering DirectX 12 support and improving the game’s visuals. Let’s hope the eventual Perfect Dark PC port doesn’t suffer the same fate as the Super Mario 64 PC release, eh?
Interestingly, while the game is fully decompiled, it isn’t 100% complete yet. The reason for this is quite simple: “a small handful of functions are not yet byte-matching even though they are functionally the same.” Basically, while the decompiling is essentially complete, the status page only counts matching functions, so it shows as being 97.48% complete.
As for the project’s legality, you’d think it wouldn’t be in the slightest. However, it is legal due to the project building the game’s assets from your own provided base ROM. The onus is on the player to provide the potentially incriminating data, which the Perfect Dark decompilation does not. Since the project doesn’t use any original code or textures, it’s a perfectly (heh) legal undertaking.
While Perfect Dark‘s recompilation is exciting news, it’s also available right now on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S as part of Rare Replay, which originally released on the Xbox 360. It’s Xbox One X Enhanced, which means the game can be played in 4K. That’s a good start, but a game like this definitely needs more help to make it more palatable to modern players. Maybe someone will take some time to sharpen the textures and polish them up along with the rest of the visuals? Only time will tell.
Speaking of time, this news comes at a time when the Perfect Dark reboot, which was announced back in 2020, still hasn’t been given a release date. At this point, it’s anyone’s guess as to what we’ll receive first: a PC port of the original Perfect Dark, or any news of the reboot, which might very well be stuck in development hell.
For more information on Perfect Dark and other interesting decompiling projects, stay tuned to TechRaptor.
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