Ship of Harkinian: how to play Ocarina of Time on PC (2026 setup guide)

Ship of Harkinian, "the Ship" or SoH, is the native PC port of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It's built by the Harbour Masters team on top of the Ocarina of Time decompilation and their libultraship library, and it runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, including Steam Deck. It isn't an emulator: the game's code was rebuilt as C and compiled for PC. You bring the ROM; it brings widescreen, high frame rates, mods and a randomizer. Checked against the official repo on Oct 13, 2026.

Legal: CRT Forge links to official project repos only. We never host or link ROMs, ISOs or game dumps. Bring your own dump from a cartridge or disc you own. This isn't legal advice.

Step 1: check your ROM dump

The Ship doesn't include any copyrighted assets. You need your own dump of a supported version: PAL 1.0, PAL 1.1, PAL GameCube, PAL Master Quest, NTSC 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 (US and JP), NTSC GameCube (US and JP, including the JP Collector's Edition), NTSC Master Quest (US and JP), plus several GameCube debug builds. The quickest check is the team's ship.equipment compatibility checker. You can also compare your file's SHA-1 hash with the list in the repo's docs/supportedHashes.json.

Step 2: download from the official Releases page

Grab the zip for your system from github.com/HarbourMasters/Shipwright/releases. Anything bundled with a ROM is not from the project. Want the newest features and don't mind bugs? The README also links nightly playtest builds.

Step 3: launch and point it at your game

• Windows: extract the zip and run soh.exe.
• Linux and Steam Deck: run soh.appimage. You may need chmod +x soh.appimage first. Saves, settings and oot.o2r live in ~/.local/share/soh/ unless you set SHIP_HOME.
• macOS: open soh.app and select your ROM when asked. You'll see "Processing OTR", then "OTR Successfully Generated", then the game starts.

That first launch is the only slow part: the Ship is extracting assets from your ROM into oot.o2r. After that it starts straight into the game.

Default controls

Controllers work out of the box and can be remapped from the menu bar.

Graphics settings and crash fixes

The Ship supports three renderers: DirectX 11 (Windows), OpenGL (every platform) and Metal (macOS). Switch in the Settings menu and restart. If it crashes on launch, open shipofharkinian.json, find gfxbackend and set it to sdl to force OpenGL.

Mods and custom assets

Custom asset packs are .otr or .o2r archives you drop into the mods folder. To make your own, the README points to retro (an archive generator) and the fast64 Blender plugin. That's also where AI tools sneak in: people upscale textures and generate replacement models before packing them. See AI mods and mashups and AI 3D tools for game assets.

More from the same team

Harbour Masters' other ports use the same libultraship base: 2 Ship 2 Harkinian for Majora's Mask, Starship (our setup guide) for Star Fox 64 (v2.0.0, May 2025) and SpaghettiKart (our setup guide) for Mario Kart 64 (1.0.0, Feb 2026). The full list, with every platform, is in the decomp hub and the best N64 PC ports. New to this? Start with decomp vs recomp vs emulation.

FAQ

Is Ship of Harkinian legal?

The Ship itself contains no Nintendo code or assets. It's built on the Ocarina of Time decompilation and only works with a ROM you provide. The team says it doesn't condone piracy, so dump your own cartridge or GameCube disc. This isn't legal advice.

Where do I download Ship of Harkinian?

Only from the official GitHub Releases page, github.com/HarbourMasters/Shipwright/releases. The latest release we checked on Oct 13, 2026 is 9.3.0 "Dewey Alpha" (Oct 6, 2026), with Windows, macOS and Linux (AppImage) builds.

Which Ocarina of Time ROM does Ship of Harkinian need?

19 dumps are supported, including N64 NTSC 1.0 to 1.2, PAL 1.0 and 1.1, the GameCube releases and Master Quest. Check yours with the official checker at ship.equipment, or compare its SHA-1 with docs/supportedHashes.json in the repo.

What is oot.o2r?

On first launch the Ship extracts the game's assets from your ROM into an archive called oot.o2r (oot-mq.o2r for Master Quest). The code reads assets from that file. Older guides call it an OTR file.

Does Ship of Harkinian work on Steam Deck?

Yes. Use the Linux AppImage in desktop mode (you may need to mark it executable), then add it to Steam as a non-Steam game.

How do I install Ship of Harkinian mods?

Put custom asset packs (.otr or .o2r files) in the mods folder. Press Tab in game to switch between original and alternate assets.

Ship of Harkinian vs Zelda 64: Recompiled: which is for Ocarina?

Today, the Ship. Zelda 64: Recompiled currently covers Majora's Mask, and its README says Ocarina of Time support is coming. For Majora's Mask, see our 2Ship vs Zelda 64: Recompiled comparison.