Game news The Portal game on Nintendo 64? Yes, it’s indeed a fan’s crazy project, and Valve noticed it… But he didn’t expect this response
While fans of this legendary console were delighted to see a version of this game in retro mode, this project ultimately fell through. The amateur developer received messages from Valve.
Nostalgia is gripping more and more gamers around the world. The days of the first PlayStation and Nintendo 64 are long gone, and the times spent playing them are fond memories. This is the reason why many demakes have emerged in recent years, to the delight of players of the time. For those who don’t know, this is a reproduction of a recent game, on a console prior to its initial release. An original way to rediscover a title while feeling pure nostalgia at the same time.
This is for example the case of this amateur project: making Portal as if it had been released on Nintendo 64. Since 2022, a fan named James Lambert has been working on it, regularly providing news of its progress. At the end of December, he released a video to inform players that a first playable version was available. Subsequently, he received many praises for the quality of his remarkable work. However, recently Valve asked James Lambert to remove this game from the Internet.
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The end of the Portal 64 project
While a large number of Internet users were delighted to discover this version of the Portal game, the project had to be withdrawn. It was Valve who sent a message to James Lambert to make this request. Although he is disappointed by the reaction of the company that owns Steam, he completely understands it. According to him, this decision was motivated by the fact that Valve “did not want to be involved in a project involving Nintendo’s intellectual property”. Faced with bad news, he would have liked to negotiate, but is aware that it is far too complex a process and even doomed to failure:
If I could talk to Nintendo about continuing with Portal 64, I would be happy to do so. I don’t know what it would take to convince them.
This division of Valve was surely motivated by the meeting with Nintendo in 2023 regarding the planned release of the Dolphin emulator for the Wii and Gamecube consoles on Steam. The Japanese company has made it clear to Valve that it considers Dolphin to be in violation of the DMCA and will not hesitate to take further action. In short, the disappointment is palpable, especially on James Lambert’s Patreon where he often gave news of this project.