Witch Time

Witch Time

An unofficial static recompilation of Bayonetta 3 (Nintendo Switch) for PC, in the spirit and architecture of B2recomp: the game's AArch64 code is translated to C on your PC from your own dump, and runs on a re-implemented system layer (threads, file system, input, audio, and NVN on Vulkan). Not an emulator, and not a way to get the game.

This repository contains no game code, no game assets, no Nintendo SDK code, no keys. Everything derived from the game (converted ELFs, translated C, the compiled game.so, caches) is generated locally into targets/, build/, cache/ and runtime/gen/, which git ignores. Never share them.

Status

What	Result
Boot and gameplay	boots and plays; 60 fps in play (Tokyo and Shibuya tested), occasional short hitches
Menus and cutscenes	30 fps as on the console by default; 60 fps with cutscene_fps = 60 in config/graphics.ini (timing stays real time; movies keep their 30 fps)
Resolution	the game's 1600x900 by default; resolution_scale in config/graphics.ini renders it larger (1.2 = 1080p, 1.6 = 1440p, 2.4 = 4K, measured at 60 fps on an RX 9070 XT; the first run at a new scale has about two minutes of held loading screens once)
Input	controllers, and keyboard + mouse (rebindable in config/controllers.ini; mouse camera; both at once); keyboard tested with synthetic events, not yet by hand
Settings	in-game PC settings panel: F1 or L3 + R3 (the game is held while it is open); vsync, cutscene frame rate, window, anisotropic filtering, texture detail and aspect change at once, the internal resolution and the frame rate (60 / 90 / 120, experimental above 60) at the next start; written to config/graphics.ini with its comments kept. The same settings (internal resolution 1.0-2.4, cutscene frame rate, frame rate 60 / 90 / 120 (experimental), vsync, display mode, anisotropic filtering, texture detail, aspect) are also rows of the game's own Options screen (Screen Display page; changed with left / right, X resets a row), with a "PC Settings" row that opens the panel; labelled in each of the game's languages (setup step text makes that text from your dump). Not a tab of their own: see STATUS.md

Details: docs/STATUS.md; findings: docs/RE_NOTES.md.

Build (Linux)

A release needs nothing installed but a Vulkan driver and OpenGL (libGL.so.1), which every desktop distribution has: it brings its own compiler (clang + lld in deps/llvm), the runtime already built (prebuilt/, with the FFmpeg it uses) and the build tool. Your PC only translates and compiles the game's code, and that needs no system headers. The deps step checks all of it and names what is missing. Your dump: one folder with exefs/ (main, sdk, subsdk0, rtld, main.npdm, plain NSO files) and romfs/ (the .pkz archives and movie/), extracted with your own tools from your own console and game; this project decrypts nothing.

A checkout has no prebuilt/, so the link step builds the runtime too: that needs clang 19 or newer + lld and the development files of SDL3, Vulkan, glslang, FFmpeg and OpenGL. The same happens in a release whose runtime/ you changed (tools/wtbuild/README.md, "Prebuilt runtime").

The build is one program, wtbuild (tools/wtbuild, Rust). A release ships it built as build/wtbuild; in a checkout, build it once with cargo:

cargo build --release --manifest-path tools/wtbuild/Cargo.toml
tools/wtbuild/target/release/wtbuild setup --dump <your dump folder>

Or build the launcher (launcher/README.md) and run build/witch-time, which does the same with progress on screen and then plays in its own window.

Setup puts the game data (the dump's romfs) in targets/romfs, so the Witch Time folder holds the whole game and can be moved anywhere: copied by default (hard links on the same drive, so no extra space, and your dump stays whole), or moved with --move-dump (the launcher's "Move the game data here" switch).

The steps (deps verify convert mods tables lift compile link text check, resumable; --only, --from, --status) are those of scripts/setup.py, which stays as the reference the Rust port is checked against (tools/wtbuild/README.md). The verify step accepts only the build named in tools/wtbuild/src/setup.rs.

Build (Windows)

Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. A release (WitchTime-<version>-windows-x86_64.zip) needs nothing installed but a Vulkan driver: it brings LLVM's own clang + lld (deps\llvm), the runtime already built (prebuilt\: witch-time-game.exe, SDL3.dll, ssbu_glslang.dll) and build\wtbuild.exe. Unzip it, run witch-time.exe and pick your dump folder, or:

build\wtbuild.exe setup --dump <your dump folder>

Movies play through Media Foundation, which Windows has; the "N" editions need the Media Feature Pack, and the deps step says so when it is missing. The game runs as build\witch-time-game.exe, with its own window; the launcher waits for it.

Building the runtime yourself (a checkout, or a changed runtime\) needs llvm-mingw and the MinGW builds of SDL3, glslang and the Vulkan headers, named in CPATH and LIBRARY_PATH. CI cross-builds all of it on Linux (.github/workflows/release.yml, job windows): wtbuild runtime --target windows --out prebuilt.

Credits

Lifter, runtime and build scripts come from B2recomp (K0NL), which builds on ssbu-recomp (Denkishi). GPL-3.0; see NOTICE.md and LICENSE.

The logo's lettering is set in the "Bayonetta" typeface by Kustren (free for non-commercial use), converted to outlines; the font file itself is not included.