A History of Nintendo’s Game Engines

While many video games are produced using industry-standard game engines such as Unity and Unreal Engine, some companies including Nintendo have kept their game production information private. I started this search looking for the original game engine used for Super Mario 64 and quickly hit a roadblock — proprietary game engines, specifically ones created and used by massive companies such as Nintendo. Through research done on the original Nintendo 64 games’ code, it's been agreed upon that most of the games created for the Nintendo 64 system use the same but heavily modified game engine which is referred to in gaming circles as Nintendo 64 SDK. Nintendo would use its in-house engine as a base and adapt it specifically for the games being produced. Some games have nearly the exact engine reused but improved for the sequels such as the Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask using an updated version of the game engine used for its predecessor Ocarina of Time. This cycle of game engines is thought to have started with Super Mario 64 and evolved until even today. Many Nintendo enthusiasts even theorize the engine used for the Nintendo 64 games is the same one being used to create modern games, albeit a heavily updated and improved version.

By its definition, a game engine is just the collection of software being used to create a game. For the Nintendo 64’s 3D engines, this included the physics systems, game framework, and relevant libraries, all of which work together to create a game’s environment. Nintendo 64 games such as Super Mario 64 appear to use a time-step-based physics simulator. Due to the incredibly small storage size of the Nintendo 64 cartridges and the lack of computing resources they had available, the physics engine being used in the Nintendo 64 games had to be highly optimized with low collider complexity. In most of these games, there were pretty standard 3D platforming physics and Super Mario 64’s engine specifically had some unique features such as the edge grab and camera controls. The game engines used for these Nintendo 64 games all shared these fundamentals and game environments, which is why many have concluded the same core engine was used for most of the Nintendo 64’s games. This would not only be to have the games function properly and have a starting point for any project but to hold a consistent standard across all games.

Below is a clip of Super Mario 64 with some of the physics interactions in the game: