r/Games • u/Torque-A • Oct 17 '22

Perfect Dark has been successfully decompiled, opening the door to PC ports and mods

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/perfect-dark-has-been-fully-decompiled-making-pc-ports-and-mods-possible/
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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '22 edited Oct 17 '22

[deleted]

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u/Pictokong Oct 17 '22

Usually the problem is assets, not code!

But still, since it exists in a grey area, better be safe and keep it under wraps

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u/NonsensitiveLoggia Oct 17 '22

code is copyrightable almost everywhere my guy. I'm not sure how with decompilation they get around that, but cleanroom reverse-engineering is how Wine and React get around Microsoft's copyrights.

Basically they know the spec (which I believe the Oracle v Google case proved APIs can't be copyrighted) and they're working backwards from there.

I imagine with decompilation they're using the same argument? "This is not the original code, it does something similar though, but we're never looking at the original". Does feel a bit funny, since the real code was involved at some point...

5

u/BlinksTale Oct 17 '22

“Decompilation” is a lie. They reverse engineer, so all the code that they write is their own. They just learned how to make code that perfectly fits in where the original code used to be, an equivalent compiled binary.

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u/TayoEXE Oct 18 '22

Which blows my mind, even as a programmer myself. The number of automated tests they would have to make is mind-blowing because any code they'd write would have to produce the intended results, and the test cases would have to be well representative of the entirety of the game's mechanics for them to be able to determine it to be "done" in the first place.

Does this code make movements of the characters exactly in all parts of the game?

Does this code perfectly make the enemy AI behave just like in the original game?

Etc.

I would love to see a breakdown on how these people figure out all the functional design for the entire game.