Zelda: Twilight Princess PC port inches closer to release with new showcase video—and modders have already added Linkle into the game

Twilight Princess: Courage Reborn - Ordon village showcase - YouTube Twilight Princess: Courage Reborn - Ordon village showcase - YouTube
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Hot on the heels of fan-made PC port Jak 3, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will soon have a playable PC release of its own. As with previous ports of Nintendo classics like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Star Fox 64, the Twilight Princess port is based on a decompilation of the original game code—a painstaking reverse-engineering process that results in completely rewritten code that can run natively on PC.

The adventure game's long introductory segment which plays out in Link's home village seems to be working quite well and is "completely crashless" according to the video, which offers a few nice details:

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  • Native 60 fps support
  • Mac and Linux support in addition to Windows
  • Mouse/keyboard input in addition to controllers
  • The main menu will be modified to offer graphics options, which will also be available in-game

"The main goal is to get to open source now," says the video in closing. Currently development is contained to the project's Discord server, but as it approaches a beta-level release in the months to come you can expect to see it pop up on Github.

As with prior fan-made decompiled PC ports, Twilight Princess: Courage Reborn does not actually contain any of Nintendo's proprietary assets. The code itself is distinct, and players have to provide their own copy of the original game—ripped from a GameCube disc—to supply the port's executable with all the art and sound assets for that code to bring to life.

Usually I don't expect to see mods for a new PC game until it's actually, you know, out, but thanks to a long history of console romhacking and the Zelda series' diehard fandom, there are already mods in the works for Courage Reborn pre-release. In a real "Nintendon't" move, Link's counterpart Linkle looks like she'll be playable as soon as the Twilight Princess PC port arrives.

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Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.


When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

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