Video game fans all around the globe revelled in an unfortunate situation for Nintendo over the weekend, as a massive data leak shared old source codes and other details about multiple classic franchises.
As Uproxx reports, development code and beta code from games including Super Mario 64, Fox, Pokemon and Zelda have emerged online.
It was revealed by a former Nintendo Developer who tweeted an image saying that it was some code he had written in c++ to help himself understand the language of Star Fox 2 as he was developing the game.
Wtf – I haven’t seen this tool I made for StarFox 2 for almost 30 years, I wrote it in early c++ to teach myself the language more than anything else. Where the hell have hackers got all this obscure data from????!! https://t.co/9kN9UoQPMS
— Dylan Makes Games (@dylancuthbert) July 24, 2020
The leak looks set to reveal some of Nintendo’s longest kept secrets, with several programmers and fans uploading their findings on Twitter, including that Luigi was originally set to be a playable character in a version of Super Mario 64 called Ultra 64 Mario Brothers.
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This particular bit of info confirms a 1996 interview with game director Shigeru Miyamoto, who said Luigi was intended to be a second playable character.
https://twitter.com/axoonium/status/1287219588640497664
https://twitter.com/BabeyoftheDay/status/1287472200082104320
So do we know it’s definitely real? While Nintendo has not confirmed publicly, Polygon points out that one well-know Nintendo data miner said it’s almost definitely legit.
“Folks presume it’s real because the sheer magnitude of files, things like secret IDs that are impossible to crack,” he said.
There has been far too much shared online to go into too much detail, but someone did uncover what they believe to be a “grandpa Yoshi” of some type.
https://twitter.com/nb_zeraora/status/1286740356055408640
Here’s what some believe to be the very first 3D model of Link from the Zelda series.
Dated from July 1994, this is possibly the first, or one of the first 3D model Nintendo ever made of Link, as an experiment on the Super FX chip. (colors were manually added). pic.twitter.com/0tV6DGaUjH
— Starxxon (@vl_tone) July 25, 2020
A stack of uncompressed, original audio was also unearthed, including this file of the original ‘Do A Barrell Roll’ voice line from Star Fox 64.
THIS IS THE ORIGINAL "DO A BARREL ROLL" VOICE LINE FROM STAR FOX 64
U N C O M P R E S S E D pic.twitter.com/94VXbypksB
— 💛🤍 Mat 💜🖤 (@MatttGFX) July 25, 2020
It wasn’t all stuff from the Nintendo 64 era either, with Generation IV Pokemon sprites supposedly included in the leaks as well, like this one.
https://twitter.com/Sanio46/status/1287283039244976129
How the code was leaked remains a mystery at this stage, and while it is certainly a nostalgia-builder to look back at this stuff, it is certainly worrying that Nintendo don’t know how this happened.
