Dominic Szablewski shipped a brand new Nintendo 64 game in 2026: Xibalba 64, a 3D FPS sold as a physical cartridge with box and manual. It runs at a stable 60 fps, supports two-player co-op and four-player deathmatch, and was built on high_impact, his own MIT-licensed game engine hosted on GitHub.
The engineering constraints are where this gets interesting. The N64 has 4 kB of texture memory for all 3D content, and high_impact is technically a 2D engine. Szablewski's fix: keep every level completely flat. No elevation means the engine never encounters a third dimension it cannot handle. The four-player split-screen mode is the only scenario that breaks the 60 fps target.
Szablewski's making-of writeup at phoboslab.org covers the full arc from demo project to boxed release, including level design decisions, sound, music, and the specific compromises the N64's architecture forced. If you work with constrained hardware or want to understand how a solo developer ships a physical retro title in 2026, the original is worth reading in full.
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