Zelda Ocarina Of Time Pc Port
Sheron Norsworthy
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Recently, we published a guide on how to download, set up, and play The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask's Native PC Port on the Steam Deck, and it blew up. It almost got to 1,000 likes on X, and we were stunned by the response. However, there was one issue: It isn't Ocarina of Time. Of the two, Ocarina of Time is definitely more popular, and support for the game is coming to the Majora's Mask Recompiled project, but there is a Native PC Port for the game available right now with tons of extra features including Randomizer support, custom model and texture support, cheats, and much more. This is the Ship of Harkinian.
Developed by the Harbour Masters, Ship of Harkinian is a full decompilation and recompilation of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, making it a native PC application. This comes with many benefits, including high-resolution support, higher framerates, cheats, changing things whenever you want (like clothing color), and so much more. And, of course, it fits perfectly on the Steam Deck with gamepad support, 16:10 resolutions, and extremely low battery drain (5.5W - 6.5W at 60 FPS).
NOTE: You will need a PAL (Europe) copy/ROM of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to use this (The Master Quest version is supported). We will not provide the game or links on where to get it. While SteamDeckHQ completely supports emulation for game preservation, we don't condone piracy in any way, shape, or form.
Head to Desktop Mode and go to the Ship of Harkinian GitHub's newest release. Download the "Linux/SteamDeck" version by clicking the giant button with the same label. At the time of writing, this is version 8.0.5.
Now, take what we downloaded and extract it into a new folder. I recommend creating a folder on your Desktop to put it in for ease of access, but there shouldn't be an issue as long as they are in a folder.
I love the original style of the game, but it is a bit nice to see some better textures all around. It can make the game feel completely different, and with how easy it is to toggle on and off, it feels like a no brainer to have them installed just in case. I recommend using OoT Reloaded from GhostlyDark. For the Deck, I would go to that link and download the oot-reloaded-v10.4.2-soh-otr-hd.7z for the regular HD version. You can download the 4K resolutions if you'd like, but it isn't necessary on the Deck's small screen.
Once that is done, open the file and you will see four different OTR files. You are going to take those files and move them to the "mods" folder in the Ship of Harkinian directory. That's it! You can now toggle "Alternate Textures" when in-game through the enhancements menu (more on how to access this below).
To apply enhancements in the game, you will need to bring up a small menu at the top of the screen and click on the enhancements you want. This isn't accessible without a keyboard, so we need to change some settings to make it possible to access.
For my time playing, I decided to change how both trackpads act to make it easier. On the left trackpad, I created a virtual menu that can not only bring up the enhancements menu, but save and load states and toggle custom textures you install. On the right trackpad, we change it to act as a mouse and pressing the trackpad emulates a left mouse click. This will allow you to interact with the menu as you please.
This one is smaller, but if you want to get the most out of the game, I recommend increasing the framerate and internal resolution. You can do this from the "Settings" tab in the Enhancements menu. I would recommend changing the internal resolution to 200% and setting the FPS to 60 (or 90 if preferred). You can also click the "Match Refresh Rate" box if you'd like, but if you change your refresh rate, you will need to go back to this menu and manually change the FPS to match.
One of the awesome features of Ship of Harikinian is the integrated Randomizer support. This randomizes different aspects of the game, like the items you pick up, making the playthrough more exciting for those who have already played the game. But it isn't as straightforward, so I wanted to give some information on how to use it.
You first need to generate the Randomizer file, which you do in-game! After you boot up the game, open up the Enhancements menu and go to the Randomizer tab. Once there, you can change randomizer settings if preferred, but if you want to, just click on "Generate Randomizer." Once you do, it will generate a file, and you can now play the Randomizer version!
And there you go! You should be all set to play and enjoy the game to the fullest and take advantage of the amazing port this is. Hats off to Harbour Masters for creating an amazing way to experience Ocarina of Time. And yes, it is fantastic to play on the Steam Deck, so I would consider this essential if you want to experience one of the best games from the N64 era in a new, modern light.
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It first released in March 2022 for Windows, four months after Ocarina of Time's source code was decompiled and released. Since then, Ship of Harkinian has received ports to Linux and macOS, and homebrew ports to Wii U and Nintendo Switch.
In November 2021, after 21 months of development, the Zelda Reverse Engineering Team (ZRET) successfully decompiled the executable to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time into human-readable code. While the decompilation project was principally carried out for the sake of documenting the game's creation and backend functionality, it also made possible the potential creation of source ports of Ocarina of Time, which would allow the game to be recompiled and run on platforms it wasn't originally developed for. Speaking to Ars Technica, ZRET member Rozlette stated that source ports were "outside the scope of what we do".[2]
In June 2020, developers Jack Walker and Kenix discussed the potential of a PC port of Ocarina of Time based on the ZRET decompilation project's work; at the time, Ocarina of Time's decompilation was only 17% complete. Development on what would later become Ship of Harkinian began in November 2021, coinciding with the decompilation project reaching completion.[3]
In January 2022, a group of community developers named Harbour Masters released footage and screenshots of Ocarina of Time running natively on Microsoft Windows, in a widescreen aspect ratio not supported by the original Nintendo 64 release. The project was titled "Ship of Harkinian", a reference to Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. Speaking to Video Games Chronicle, Kenix, now part of Harbour Masters, estimated the project was "approximately 90%" complete.[4]
In May 2022, Harbour Masters announced the release of a Linux port of Ship of Harkinian via "Ship of Harkinian Direct", an online video parody presentation of Nintendo Direct. Additional features noted in this Direct include save states, an integrated cheat menu, accessibility options, and support for running the game at 60 frames per second.[7]
Two months later, in July 2022, an additional Ship of Harkinian Direct was released, announcing the release of Ship of Harkinian for macOS and Wii U. Additional features promoted in this Direct include a graphic interface for rebinding controls, a "randomizer" which randomizes various elements of the game to enhance replayability, and the ability to set an arbitrary framerate (up to 250FPS).[8]
In April 2023, a new Ship of Harkinian Direct was released, announcing custom texture and model support. Multiplayer functionality was added to the port; a second player can take control of Ivan the Fairy, described as a fairy "who likes to play tricks", whose abilities can either help or hinder the main player.[10]
In November 2023, Harbours Masters revealed that they had fully decompiled Majora's Mask, and are currently working on a PC port provisionally called 2Ship2Harkinian,[12] with its first version being released on 26 May 2024.
Ship of Harkinian has been favorably compared against the Nintendo Switch Online version of Ocarina of Time. Nick Rodriguez of Screen Rant deemed Ship of Harkinian "significantly better than the current Switch version in almost every regard",[13] with The Verge's Derek Hill expressing similar sentiment: "As long as Nintendo is content putting out alarmingly low-quality versions of their classic games for shockingly high prices, Ship of Harkinian is proof that the unofficial option is sometimes the best option."[3]
Some outlets expressed apprehension over Ship of Harkinian, fearing that Nintendo's perceived litigiousness could jeopardize the project. In discussing Ship of Harkinian's long-term prospects, Gamespot writer Jenny Zheng remarked that that Ship of Harkinian's "odds aren't great", while characterizing Nintendo as "notoriously copyright-lawsuit-happy".[14] Luke Plunkett of Kotaku referred to Ship of Harkinian's legality as "murky", but noted that other projects built off of reverse engineering efforts were still active as of writing.[15] In a statement to GamesRadar+, Harbour Masters contributor Kenix defended the legality of Ship of Harkinian: "The [Ocarina of Time] assets will be ripped from a user's own ROM that they must provide and then be exported into an archive compatible with the Ship of Harkinian. None of Nintendo's own property is involved in the process."[16] Harbour Masters encouraged users to support official releases of Ocarina of Time, and offered a unique role on their Discord server to those who can provide proof of ownership.[17]
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