Super Mario Galaxy is unofficially coming to PC after reverse-engineering milestone

We’ve already seen roughly half a dozen GameCube games decompiled so far, a process that allows these games to be unofficially ported to modern platforms. We hadn’t seen any Wii games decompiled just yet, but that recently changed.

The SMGCommunity group fully decompiled Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii this week. This makes it the first Wii game to be 100% decompiled. This reverse-engineering process is usually a prerequisite for an old game to be unofficially ported to PC, smartphones, and other platforms.

In fact, developer collective Luma’s Workshop has already announced an unofficial PC port dubbed AstroCore. This version will apparently be “100% coded by humans.” The statement suggests that the team won’t make heavy use of generative AI for coding. While AI-assisted coding can speed up development and updates, we’ve also seen a raft of vibecoded fan ports by people who aren’t developers. This often leads to a ton of technical debt and other issues, adversely affecting the long-term viability of these projects.

There’s no word on an Android port, but recent history suggests that the community might step in to deliver one. Super Smash Bros Melee for GameCube was fully decompiled just this month, with an unofficial Android port following shortly thereafter.

Super Mario Galaxy isn’t the only decompilation project in the works for Wii games. Other notable Wii titles undergoing this reverse-engineering process include Mario Strikers: Charged, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Rock Band 3, and Xenoblade Chronicles.