You ever wonder why Wii’re here? Xbox’s flagship launch title Halo: Combat Evolved could one day be playable on the Nintendo Wii thanks to a brilliant in-development homebrew port.
Released four years before the launch of the Nintendo Wii, Bungie’s industry-changing 2001 shooter is still challenging for the system. Halo: Combat Evolved is an intensive game for the original Xbox, and the unfortunately weak Nintendo Wii does struggle with the game.
In development by JojoXDK, the in-development homebrew port is currently based on a decompilation of game’s Anniversary remaster from 2011. While the game is working with the Anniversary version, which is based off the unfortunate Gearbox PC port from 2003, the modder believes that the port will be more performant when they move to a decompilation of the Original Xbox version.
Since the homebrew developer’s first video, which showed a poorly performing section of The Silent Cartographer, performance has massively improved. The mod’s latest showcase shows a well-performing version of Assault on the Control Room complete with motion controls, although there are still issues.
The modder explained that the Nintendo Wii’s hardware does lack in some areas compared to the Original Xbox. For example, the OG Xbox was the first console to make use of programmable shaders which were used to full effect in Halo: Combat Evolved. As the Wii is essentially an upgraded GameCube, a lot of the original game’s effects won’t be present in the Wii port.
“A lot of the cool effects you see on Xbox won’t be there. The Wii does technically have more RAM but doesn’t have a hard drive for cache,” the modder explained. “I’m abusing the SDcard as a substitute.”
With that said, the modder explained that the “GPU has a lot more in the tank”, but the CPU is currently topped out as it has to perform functions the GPU doesn’t natively support. “The CPU has to do animation skinning due to [the] GX GPU not supporting multi-influence on bones. Not sure if there’s a good way to convert animations.”
Furthermore, while a Halo: Combat Evolved port to the Nintendo Wii would be awesome—and the modder explains that multiplayer would be easier to port than the campaign they’re porting—the modder explained that a Halo CE port to the PlayStation Vita handheld would have been a significantly easier task.
“I would kill for someone to make a Vita port,” the developer said. “It should be much easier than a Wii since you will have real shaders”.
Right now, the plan is to bring the entire campaign to the Nintendo Wii with a goal of 30fps playback in all scenes. However, there is currently no planned release date while the project is currently in development, especially as they plan to move from the Xbox 360 decompilation to the original game’s code.
While the game will likely come to the Nintendo Wii, it will lack some of the more unique shader effects the original Xbox game boasted. This isn’t too surprising. While developers worked wonders with the console back in the day, this just shows how unique consoles used to be from one another before the consolidation of hardware.
