NHL Legacy Recomp

NHL Legacy Recomp

A native PC port of NHL Legacy (Xbox 360), produced by static recompilation — the original game's code is translated into a native Windows executable via RexGlue rather than emulated, so it runs as a real PC application with modern rendering on top.

⚠️ You must provide your own legally dumped copy of the game. This project ships no game content of any kind. Piracy is not condoned — do not ask for, share, or use illegally obtained game files. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by EA or Microsoft.

What you get

• Native performance — runs as a real Windows program (no emulator), at real-time framerates well above the original console.
• Modern Vulkan renderer with AMD FidelityFX (FSR upscaling / CAS sharpening), optional supersampling, and a live color-grade pass (exposure / contrast / saturation / white balance / tone mapping).
• In-game overlay — a settings panel, performance HUD, and display options (fullscreen / borderless, monitor select), toggled with a button on screen.
• Loose-file friendly — the installer unpacks the game's archives into a browsable file tree, so the community can inspect and replace assets.
• Working in-game movies — the VP6 intros / FMV are decoded on the host by a bundled ffmpeg.exe (the recompiled decoder had an arithmetic bug that garbled them); it ships beside the port and needs no setup.

Requirements

• Windows 10 / 11, 64-bit (native), or Linux / Steam Deck via Proton — see docs/linux.md
• A Vulkan-capable GPU
• The Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (x64) (Windows native; Proton usually provides this on Linux)
• ~10 GB free disk space
• Your own dumped copy of NHL Legacy — either a raw .iso of your disc, or an already-extracted game folder containing default.xex

Getting started

1. Download the latest release zip from the Releases page and extract it anywhere (keep the files together).

2. Run the builder with your own dump — either double-click nhl-legacy-builder.exe for prompts, or from a terminal:

   nhl-legacy-builder install --iso "C:\dumps\NHL Legacy.iso" --out "C:\Games\NHL Legacy"
   

   (Use --from "C:\path\to\extracted folder" instead of --iso if you already have an extracted game folder.)

3. Launch nhllegacy.exe from the output folder. No arguments needed.

To check that a dump is supported without doing a full install:

nhl-legacy-builder verify --iso "C:\dumps\NHL Legacy.iso"

The build is recompiled from one specific vanilla image of the game, so the builder verifies your default.xex by hash. A different region, a modified dump, or one with a title update applied will not pass validation.

Legal

You must own NHL Legacy and dump your own copy. No game assets are included or distributed with this project, and none will be provided. This is a fan preservation/portability effort, not affiliated with or endorsed by EA or Microsoft. See THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt in the release for bundled component licenses.

Linux and Steam Deck

The Windows build runs on Linux through Steam + Proton 11.0. Community-tested guides for playing an existing install and assembling one from a release zip + ISO are in docs/linux.md.

For developers

Building the port from source, the recompilation pipeline, the release process, and architecture notes live in DEV-README.md and docs/current-status.md.