Ports to the Wii U from the homebrew scene in the time since the system had been laid to rest

[MikaDubbz]

I feel like we should have a hub for this kind of content, because there is a fair amount of this now and some of it may slip by without some of us even knowing it. These ports come through various means that seem some may be accomplished in different ways, but the end result is the same, an official game (or version of an official game) that the Wii U never received, yet the homebrew scene has managed to get it running natively on the Wii U; be it through a decomp and recomp or reverse engineering, or some other method(s) I'm unaware of. It is interesting that the rise of these kinds of ports, to the Wii U, Vita, Switch, etc. only started to pop up maybe 5 or so years ago. We may not have a ton of such ports yet for the Wii U, but the amount is substantial enough that it leaves me curious what this scene will continue to see for the years to come. As long as decomp projects exist, I imagine the Wii U will continue to see unique ports from the homebrew scene for much time to come.

But I digress, let's get down to business (all links are to the most relevant GBAtemp first, if no download link is in the thread, a separate link is supplied after. If no thread of substance exists, direct links to websites and githubs will be used instead):

Super Mario 64

Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and Master Quest

Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask (working build here)

Grand Theft Auto III (archived download)

Grand Theft Auto Vice City (archived download)

Sonic The Hedgehog (Sonic Forever 1.4.1 mod highly recommended (later versions wont load though))

Sonic The Hedgehog CD

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Sonic 2 Absolute 1.1.1 mod highly recommended (later versions wont load though))

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 A.I.R. (not done yet, but coming very soon)

Sonic The Hedgehog Mania (and Mania Plus)

Five Nights at Freddy's

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Bendy and the Ink Machine: Chapter 1

Slender The Eight Pages

Doom

Cave Story (archived download)

Milk Outside a Bag of Milk (demo available)

Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning

Kindergarten 1

Golfing Over It with Alva Majo

Pureya

Paratopic

Cut the Rope

Bad Piggies

Retry

Dark Echo

Space Cadet Pinball/Full Tilt Pinball (both versions work, Full Tilt version has more than just the 1 Space Cadet pinball table we all know andlove

Garry's Mod

Sonic Unleashed (still in the works, demo available)

Sonic Utopia (low framerate, but it is working on the Wii U all the same)

Undertale (still in the works, alpha available)

Cuphead (this is an actual port, not to be confused with a different abandoned Cuphead Wii U project from a few years ago.)

Portal (incomplete, demo available)

Half Life (incomplete, demo available)

Trogdor Reburninated (faithful remake, not an actual port)

There should theoretically be a build of GTA Liberty City Stories, as the GTA reverse engineered projects were taken down only after that third game was added to the fray. My understanding is it was recompiled for other platforms right before all the GTA projects were removed by Take Two's request. So the person that knew what they were doing this those projects, I bet has a build of Liberty City Stories on his Wii U. I could be wrong, but I bet he does, but even if not, the point is, it should totally be feasible I imagine, and now that Take Two lost that lawsuit, I would love to see it pop up for the Wii U, but I'm not holding my breath at the same time.

Please note, I'm trying to restrict this thread to ports of commercial games, be they AAA, indie, console, mobile, or anything in between, if it's a full game not originally released to the Wii U but another platform, and now has faithfully been brought to the Wii U, that is what I'm looking for. So a clone of Pac Man or Snake or the like doesn't fit, nor does a brand new homebrew game entirely (no matter how great it is).

Please do let me know if I missed any projects out there.

 

[Ettino]

Both GTA III & VC wup are still on archive. Together in a 4.1gb wup package.

 

[V10lator]

now that Take Two lost that lawsuit

Source? To my knowledge they settled out of court, so one could say take two won.

 

[MikaDubbz]

Source? To my knowledge they settled out of court, so one could say take two won.

They did settle, which means that no judgement was made on these reverse engineering/decomp projects. Which means they're not illegal (yet anyway), which I would consider a win for the homebrew community, at least for the time being.

 

[Technician]

Please do let me know if I missed any projects out there.

You forgot Crispy Doom.
I am wondering if we are going to see GTA San Andreas port soon, now that the lawsuit has been settled. Maybe we got a real lawyer here, but my understanding is also that it isn't illegal right now to port GTA SA until they file in a new lawsuit.

 

[V10lator]

They did settle, which means that no judgement was made on these reverse engineering/decomp projects.

But it also means there must be a reason why the ports are still offline. Most likely take 2 payed the devs for this which makes new ports unlikely (at least from the same developer team). Also the dev team had a lawyer handling all this, a new team might fear getting sued from take 2.

Pretty sure there are NDAs through, so we will never know the truth.

 

[KirbyBot]

There's also Garry's Mod made by Shiro (one of the founders of Source Macchiato) as a simple project, it is unfinished (probably forever), but it's still a cool port.

Post automatically merged: Apr 7, 2025

And there's the Binding of Isaac Afterbirth Wii U Port too, but idk if it should be included or not, as it is an official port, but it was never released.

 

[MikaDubbz]

But it also means there must be a reason why the ports are still offline. Most likely take 2 payed the devs for this which makes new ports unlikely (at least from the same developer team). Also the dev team had a lawyer handling all this, a new team might fear getting sued from take 2.

Pretty sure there are NDAs through, so we will never know the truth.

Sure, not denying that. But if it's a queston as to why I consider it a loss for Take Two, I guess it's only because I consider it a win for the homebrew scene. So yeah, they didn't actually lose, but the end result wasn't damning for the scene like it could have been.

 

[Technician]

And there's the Binding of Isaac Afterbirth Wii U Port too, but idk if it should be included or not, as it is an official port, but it was never released.

Thanks. I didn't know about that port. This should be included here as well.

 

[KirbyBot]

Cut the Rope.

Post automatically merged: Apr 8, 2025

RETRY and Dark Echo.

 

[MikaDubbz]

Original post has been updated with additional entries and links. Keep 'em coming if you find 'em!

 

[KirbyBot]

There is a Cuphead port, but the link is dead. However The Latte Team are making their own port now.
And also, Garry's Mod is not in the list.

 

[MikaDubbz]

There is a Cuphead port, but the link is dead. However The Latte Team are making their own port now.
And also, Garry's Mod is not in the list.

That old Cuphead thing wasn't really a port, the were rebuilding the game on the Wii U from scratch, but abandoned it pretty quickly. That was more of a proof of concept than anything else. Cool to hear that a team is actively working on a port though.
And yeah, totally forgot about Gary's Mod.

 

[Moon164]

This is very useful, since they revamped the forum I feel like the posts have gotten kind of mixed up and lost in time, this is a good way to find some of the ports that the Wii U received.

If I'm not mistaken GTA 3, Vice City and Sonic Mania also had ports for the Wii U.

 

[MikaDubbz]

This is very useful, since they revamped the forum I feel like the posts have gotten kind of mixed up and lost in time, this is a good way to find some of the ports that the Wii U received.

If I'm not mistaken GTA 3, Vice City and Sonic Mania also had ports for the Wii U.

Yeah, they're already in the first post.

 

[Moon164]

Yeah, they're already in the first post.

Thanks, I just noticed later, I was kind of sleepy the first time I saw the post.

 

[KirbyBot]

The Latte Team and Source Macchiato released the first demo of Cuphead Wii U!

 

[Lostbhoy]

I believe I still have full tilt pinball, will have a look in the morning and pop it up.

 

[KirbyBot]

Sonic The Hedgehog (Archived thread includes highly recommended Sonic Forever mod)

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Archived thread includes highly recommended Sonic 2 Absolute mod)

Just noticed the attached mod files aren't updated, I recommend getting them from the official website: Sonic 1 Forever and Sonic 2 Absolute.

 

[shiro-sata]

Hey i'm ShiroSATA from Source Macchiato !
Thanks for referencing all this ^^ It would be cool to make a store (outside of the HB store) where you can freely download all these ports. I'm seriously thinking about making one. A lot of people aren't aware of these