Cadence of Hyrule Recomp

Cadence of Hyrule Recomp is a native Windows port of Cadence of Hyrule that starts and reaches gameplay at 60 fps.

README

Cadence of Hyrule Recomp

A static recompilation of Cadence of Hyrule – Crypt of the NecroDancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo Switch) into a native x86-64 Windows executable.

Warning

This project was made by AI. Nearly all of the code, the porting work and this documentation were written by an AI coding agent (Claude Code, by Anthropic) at the repository owner's request; the owner tested the builds on their own PC.

It is based on totk-pc-recomp by Valiantsin Dzerakh (the Tears of the Kingdom recomp). The lifter, the runtime, the installer and almost everything else come from there; this repository only adapts it to another game. The original credits and licenses still apply (see Credits).

It is far from 100%. The game starts, plays its movies and reaches gameplay, but it has had little testing: expect visual bugs, crashes, things that do not work and menu options that do nothing. There is no guarantee the game can be finished.

Important

No game files are included. You need your own copy of the game, dumped from your own console. Instructions for obtaining those files will not be provided.

The game is built from your files on your machine, so the result contains the game. It is for your own use. Do not share the installed folder.

What works (so far)

  • Starts, shows the opening movies and reaches gameplay at 60 fps
  • Shadows and the picture are the right way up
  • Keyboard, mouse and gamepad (inherited from TotK Recomp)
  • In-game settings menu (F1) and performance overlay (F10); options that only made sense for TotK are hidden

What does not work or is untested

  • Only version 1.5.0 (base game 1.0.0 + the 1.5.0 update). DLC is not supported.
  • Only Windows has been tested.
  • TotK's mods, cheats, DLSS and shader preparation do not apply to this game.
  • There may be stutter the first time each effect appears, because shaders are translated during play.
  • Saves, long play sessions, local multiplayer and most of the game's areas have not been checked.

Installing (Windows)

Requirements: Windows 10 or later, an x86-64 CPU with SSE4.2, a GPU with Vulkan 1.3, and about 12 GB free during setup.

You need:

  • the base game (version 1.0.0) as NSP, XCI, NSZ or XCZ
  • the 1.5.0 update as NSP or NSZ
  • your console's prod.keys

Steps:

  1. Download the .zip from Releases and unpack it.
  2. Start Cadence-Setup.exe. If SmartScreen warns about an unsigned app, choose More info, then Run anyway.
  3. Pick the game files, prod.keys, the language and an install folder, and press Start. The setup checks the files by hash, extracts them, turns the game's code into C and compiles everything with the compiler bundled in the package. This takes a few minutes and only needs to be done once.
  4. Play cadence.exe from the install folder.

Settings are in the in-game menu (F1) and in cadence.ini.

Building from source

The process is the same as in the original project (docs/building.md), with --game cadence for tools/build_game.py and --modules main,subsdk0,subsdk1,sdk for recomp/gen.py. The game profile (title ids, versions, expected hashes) is in tools/game_profile.py and tools/data/cadence. The release package is built by tools/make_release.py.

Everything the build writes stays under build\ and generated\, which git ignores. Run tools/check_content.py before every commit so that no game content enters the repository.

Credits

  • totk-pc-recomp by Valiantsin Dzerakh: the base of this whole project
  • The projects totk-pc-recomp builds on, listed with their licenses in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md: LAS Recomp, MacNativeGames, Ryujinx, deko3d, hactool, SDL 3, Dear ImGui, AMD FSR 1, Vulkan Memory Allocator, libopus, libvpx, Zstandard, Switchbrew and the Switch homebrew community

License

The project's code is under the original project's MIT License; third-party code keeps its own license (THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md). The license grants nothing for the game.

An independent, non-commercial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo, Brace Yourself Games or Spike Chunsoft. The Legend of Zelda, Cadence of Hyrule and Nintendo Switch are trademarks of Nintendo; Crypt of the NecroDancer is a trademark of Brace Yourself Games.