A 2005 Nintendo GameCube Classic Is Back From The Dead

Sep 22, 2026 - 01:09

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A 2005 Nintendo GameCube Classic Is Back From The Dead

Published Sep 21, 2026, 5:00 PM EDT

Austin King is the Senior Editor of Gaming at ScreenRant and has been with the site since 2020 with a focus on RPGs and tabletop games. He previously managed content for Geek to Geek Media, and has served as a writer for sites like Nintendad, Geek Fitness, and more.

In addition to his work at ScreenRant, he also hosts the Dragon Quest FM podcast and is the author of several books, including co-writing Nimbus (a #1 bestseller in 2013). His latest is the nonfiction The Dragon Quest Book, available now.

He's written about pop culture, video games, and genre studies over the course of his career. You can find him on BlueSky, X, and at Dragonquestaustin.com

Nintendo's GameCube has given us a lot of beloved games, including two excellent The Legend of Zelda games in Twilight Princess and Wind Waker. Even Resident Evil 4 started off as a limited-time exclusive for Nintendo's console. 20 years later, and many of these games have been ported through Nintendo Switch Online or gotten HD remasters. However, there are still some GameCube titles that haven't quite seen the light of day again.

For those of us who remember the greatest games on GameCube, it can be a bit sad seeing an exclusive you once loved that hasn't shown up on the Switch or Switch 2. Thankfully, even if you don't have NSO + Expansion Pack, one of those GameCube exclusives that have been left for dead is making a comeback. This time around, though, we only have fans to thank, since this isn't an official game release from Nintendo.

A native PC port of Super Mario Strikers has shown up on Github, offering up a modern-day look of the classic GameCube title from 2005. While this is missing online multiplayer, it comes with an impressive amount of features, which are listed on the game's page:

High framerate support with configurable frame limits and VSync.
Widescreen and ultrawide support, with an expanded view of the pitch and corrected aspect ratios.
Higher-resolution rendering with adjustable internal resolution, 4x MSAA and up to 16x anisotropic filtering.
Modern graphics backends through Metal, Vulkan and Direct3D 12 via Aurora, with experimental OpenGL and OpenGL ES options on Linux. Vulkan is personally recommended on non-macOS systems.
Controller support for Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro and compatible GameCube adapters through SDL.
Button prompts follow the active keyboard or controller and its bindings with selectable controller artwork.
Customizable controls, including keyboard and gamepad bindings, stick deadzones and rumble.
Faster loading compared with original hardware.
Direct disc-image loading from ISO/GCM, CISO and GCZ files, alongside extracted game folders.
US, European and Japanese game support in one executable, with region-aware saves and language handling. The Japanese disc supports Japanese, English, German, French, Spanish and Italian.
A dedicated settings app for configuring graphics, controls, audio and game-data location. Some basic localization included to help.

To play, you'll need game data from your own copy of Super Mario Strikers, since this PC version doesn't include game assets.

Mario and Donkey Kong matching off in Super Mario Strikers

The original game is available with Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, but you're still playing a 2005 game, really. This PC version comes with some much-needed features and a few new bells and whistles. A sequel called Mario Strikers: Battle League was released in 2022, so you can check that out as well. Although, this latest entry hasn't been as widely adored as the original.

Super Mario Strikers is just one of the latest Nintendo games that have gotten recompilations on PC. Mario Kart and Super Mario 64 are just a couple that we've covered in the past. And, honestly, it's pretty cool seeing fans taking the time to make these versions of these classic games. Hopefully, it means some more GameCube classics will get a fresh coat of paint in the future.