Developer Snake announced an unofficial port of the original Tomb Raider for the Nintendo 64 on April 13. The project aims to bring the classic title to the console using modern development techniques. Snake is building the port from scratch rather than relying on existing emulation code.
The developer utilizes Lost Artefact’s TRX decompilation method as the technical foundation. This approach allows the game to run on the Tiny3D graphics library. The entire project operates on top of the libdragon framework. These tools enable the recreation of the game's core engine for the N64 hardware.
The port fits almost the entire game onto a 64 MB cartridge. This storage capacity includes all of the original music and most of the full-motion videos. Snake stated that the game is pretty much implemented but still contains bugs. Performance issues are particularly noticeable in levels with large areas.
Current testing shows the project only performs well with overclocked settings on the Analogue 3D hardware. This suggests the port may struggle on standard Nintendo 64 hardware without similar modifications. The developer has not mentioned a release date for the cartridge. It remains unclear whether a downloadable ROM version will be shared with the public.
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