Nintendo’s key art for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on Nintendo Switch 2. Image: Nintendo
Nintendo’s remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time went on sale for the Switch 2 on Wednesday, November 5. The same day, a fan who goes by NotRexed put Hookshot on GitHub, an unofficial PC port that turns the game into a native Windows and Linux program with no emulator, and its rules say every commit credits Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5.
By Sunday the project had more than 2,500 stars on GitHub, among the fastest-growing new projects on the site this week. It is the latest in a run of Switch 2 ports that their makers say were written mostly by Claude.
What is Hookshot, the Ocarina of Time remake PC port?
Hookshot is a static recompilation, or recomp. Emulators such as Lichii imitate the Switch 2 while a game runs; Hookshot instead translates the game’s own code into C ahead of time and compiles it into a PC program. The project’s readme says it also reimplements the console’s system software and rebuilds the Switch 2’s graphics on Vulkan, “on your PC, from your own copy of the game”.
The repository holds no game, keys or ready-made program, and doesn’t explain how to get them. Players point its builder at their own copy of the game, at one supported version, and the build takes about 40 minutes. The readme asks people never to share the files it makes.
How are people getting the game to use with Hookshot?
Hookshot needs the game’s files, and Nintendo doesn’t sell the remake for PC, so players are getting them in two ways. Owners are copying the game off their own console, which means hacking the Switch 2 first. Tom’s Hardware reported that the remake was copied with ns2jb, the jailbreak a security researcher released last month with help from OpenAI’s Codex, and a dumping tool called OunceCake. The jailbreak has to be rerun from a computer after every restart, and it relies on SmileBASIC 4, a $25 app Nintendo has since pulled from its eShop.
Others are skipping the console altogether. Copies of the game and its 23GB version 1.1.1 update were circulating online on launch day, Tom’s Hardware said, after some physical copies reached buyers several days early. Downloading those copies is piracy. Copying your own is not clear-cut either: in the US, the UK and the EU, getting round a console’s copy protection can be against the law even for a game you own.
The download searches carry a second risk. Lichii’s maintainers warn on its GitHub page that the emulator has no download site besides its GitHub releases, and that a copycat site, lichii.org, was reported to install malware. Hookshot’s readme points to its own GitHub releases page for the builder.
Does it work? What works and the PC requirements
It is rough for now. NotRexed has tested it on one PC, with a Ryzen 5 7600X and an RTX 4060 Ti, mostly in Kokiri Forest at the start of the game. Gameplay, sound, controllers and saves work there, along with an in-game menu that adds frame generation and upscaling. It manages about 50 frames per second walking around without frame generation and stutters when entering new areas. Hyrule Field and the rest of the game haven’t been tested.
The readme asks for 64-bit Windows 10 or 11, or a recent Linux distribution (it lists SteamOS among them), plus a graphics card with Vulkan 1.3 and mesh shaders, 16GB of RAM and about 60GB of free space while building. Only NVIDIA cards have been tested, so AMD and Intel graphics, including the AMD chip in the Steam Deck, are unknown. There is no Mac version.
Built with Claude Opus 5.5
Hookshot’s design document sets out its working rules, including that every commit ends with “Assisted-by: Claude Opus 5.5” and a co-author line crediting the model. It didn’t start from scratch. Hookshot is a fork of NotRexed’s Mario Kart World port, BlueShell, which itself builds on his Tears of the Kingdom port, Skybound, and on open-source Switch emulator code from Eden, Eglantine and suyu.
Other makers are more direct. TotK Recomp, a separate Tears of the Kingdom PC port with about 5,800 stars since October 29, says “most of the code and documentation is written by AI coding agents (Claude Code) under the maintainer’s direction; the maintainer plays every build and decides what is merged.” A Donkey Kong Bananza port says the same. The developer of a Pokémon Pokopia port for Windows, Mac and iPhone writes: “I did this port with a lot of help from an AI assistant (Claude), over a couple of very long weeks.”
Anthropic told Claude Code last month to stop remaking existing video games, but these projects don’t rebuild a game from scratch: they convert Nintendo’s own code from a copy the player already has.
“Anyone with an AI subscription”
Not everyone is cheering. Encounter, who ran decomp.dev, an index of fan projects that rebuild old games’ source code by hand, closed its main index and leaderboard last month and blamed AI. Encounter wrote that AI can now speed up the work “with the right guidance, human input, and code reviews”, but that people were forking projects to “finish” them with AI and racing out ports:
Yes, now anyone with an AI subscription can manage to create a port or static recompilation that functions at a basic level.
Encounter, decomp.dev
Encounter added that leaderboards had become “a hollow numbers game”, driven by people who “just want to burn tokens to make number go up or ‘port game to PC’, all else be damned.”
Is the Ocarina of Time PC port legal?
Nintendo hasn’t commented on Hookshot or the other ports. It has gone after PC versions of its games before: in 2024 the makers of the Switch emulator yuzu shut it down and agreed to pay Nintendo $2.4 million to settle a lawsuit. Hookshot borrows from emulators descended from yuzu, though, unlike yuzu, it targets one game and needs the player’s own copy. In August, Nintendo had 401 GitHub repositories removed with seven copyright notices, Tom’s Hardware reported, including several projects built on yuzu. The Switch 2 itself was jailbroken for the first time only last month, with help from OpenAI’s Codex.
Why it matters
A native PC port of a brand-new Nintendo game used to be years of expert work, if it happened at all. Hookshot reached playable in days, with Claude doing much of the coding, which puts both Nintendo’s lawyers and the hobbyists who used to do this by hand in a new position.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a PC port of the Ocarina of Time remake?
Not an official one. Hookshot is an unofficial fan project that recompiles the Nintendo Switch 2 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time into a native Windows and Linux game. It is experimental and has only been tested at the start of the game.
Is Hookshot an emulator?
No. Hookshot is a static recompilation: it translates the game’s own code into C ahead of time and compiles it into a PC program, instead of imitating the Switch 2 while the game runs, as emulators such as Lichii do.
Can you download the Ocarina of Time remake for PC?
No. Nintendo sells the remake only for Nintendo Switch 2 and there is no official PC version. Hookshot builds a PC version from the game’s files but doesn’t include them, and the copies circulating online are pirated: downloading them is illegal.
How do people get the game files for Hookshot?
Some owners copy the game from their own Switch 2 after hacking it with the ns2jb jailbreak, which can be against the law in the US, the UK and the EU even for a game you own. Others download pirated copies that started circulating online on launch day.
Where do you download Hookshot?
Hookshot Builder for Windows and the Linux AppImage are on the Releases page of NotRexed’s Hookshot repository on GitHub. Be wary of other download sites: a copycat site for the Lichii emulator was reported to install malware.
Do you need your own copy of the game?
Yes. Hookshot contains no game, keys or ready-made program. It builds the PC version from a copy of the Switch 2 game the player already owns, at one supported version, and the build takes about 40 minutes.
What PC do you need for Hookshot?
Its readme asks for 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 or a recent Linux, a graphics card with Vulkan 1.3 and mesh shaders, 16GB of RAM and about 60GB of free space while building. Only NVIDIA graphics cards have been tested.
Was Hookshot made with AI?
Yes. Hookshot’s design document says every commit credits Claude Opus 5.5, Anthropic’s AI model. Several other Switch 2 PC ports, including TotK Recomp, say most of their code was written by Claude Code.
Is the Ocarina of Time PC port legal?
It is a legal grey area. Hookshot ships no Nintendo files and says it should only be built from your own copy, but Nintendo has taken action against PC versions of its games before, and it hasn’t commented on Hookshot.
Sources: Hookshot on GitHub; Hookshot design document; TotK Recomp; Donkey Kong Bananza recomp; Pokopia native; decomp.dev; Lichii; Tom’s Hardware.
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