Nintendo 64 just got a Skyrim-sized open world game that’s fully playable

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A developer has successfully built an open-world game for the Nintendo 64 that features a map roughly the same size as the one in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Junkrunner 64 is an open-world game for the Nintendo 64 that boasts a huge, connected world without any loading screens – a remarkable feat considering the console’s limitations, as it avoids the typical ‘fog’ effect often used to mask draw distances.

Thirty years ago, many games for this console hid distant areas to cover up limited graphics. But the creator, James Lambert, and his team have made a game that doesn’t rely on those tricks.

James explained that the game has a very large view distance, similar to that of Skyrim. Players can see across the entire map from almost any location.

Junkrunner 64 has huge map with same draw distances as Skyrim

Junkrunner 64 is still quite basic in terms of features, but you can get around its big desert world either on foot or by riding a hover bike.

This is a great feature! Comparing its size to older Zelda games like Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, the map is significantly larger. The video also shows a comparison to the Skyrim map, which is large, but only slightly bigger than Junkrunner 64.

The video above explains in detail why the Nintendo 64 had trouble displaying distant objects. Essentially, the N64 often misplaced things, making objects appear closer or further away than they should have been, which created visual problems with how far away things seemed.

Lambert and his team solved this problem by rendering the game world in two stages. First, they drew distant objects at a smaller scale, and then they drew the closer objects in a separate pass.

The game creates a richly detailed world comparable to today’s big RPGs like Skyrim, all on a console that originally came out in 1996.

To experience it yourself, you can download the game from the official website. However, you’ll need either a Nintendo 64 console or a high-quality emulator to play it.

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2026-03-30 17:48