Skylanders: Swap Force, recompiled

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Core of Light (the launcher for all six) · Getting started · Which disc · Help · Report a problem


**Skylanders: Swap Force** (Xbox 360, 2013) as a native Windows game: a controller, up to 3x the console's resolution, 60 FPS and more, swappers, no emulator. You bring your own copy of the game; nothing of it comes with this project. > Unofficial fan project. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Activision or Vicarious Visions. ## Getting started **The easy way:** install [Core of Light](https://github.com/tsapZ/SkylandersCoreOfLight/releases) and show it your disc. It downloads this game, sets it up and keeps it up to date, and does the same for the other five games. **On its own:** 1. Download `SwapForceRecompSetup-.exe` from the [Releases](https://github.com/tsapZ/SwapForceRecomp/releases) page. 2. Run it and pick your disc, as an ISO file or an extracted folder. It checks the version and takes what it needs. 3. Start the game from the desktop or the Start menu. What you need: - Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and a graphics card with DirectX 12 - your own Xbox 360 disc of the game ([which one](#which-disc)) - a controller (Xbox or compatible); keyboard and mouse work too. A real Portal of Power is optional. The setup isn't signed, so Windows may say "Windows protected your PC": click **More info**, then **Run anyway**. No admin rights needed.
## What you get - **A sharper picture:** 1x, 2x or 3x the console's 720p, AMD CAS sharpening and 16x texture filtering, with the presets *Performance*, *Quality* and *Best*. - **60 FPS**, or 30 as on the console, or 144 and more. The game keeps its normal speed. - **Ultrawide:** a wider window shows more to the sides. - **No portal needed:** when the game asks for a Skylander, a menu with every figure opens by itself, in the game's own look. Swappers are put together from any top and bottom half there. - **A real portal works too**, the Swap Force one as well as the older PS3 and Wii portals, or both at once with the menu. - **Your figures keep their progress** (level, gold, hats, upgrades) in files you can back up, and each one is backed up before the game first saves over it: the portal menu puts an older version back. - **Quick swap:** one button puts the Skylander you played before back on the portal. - **A settings menu** in the game: graphics, frame rate, language, portal, controls, and *Extras* (no health loss, full gold; off by default, and *Show cheats* hides the lot). - **5.1 sound** as the game mixes it, or stereo. - **Achievements.** - **A Discord status,** if you switch it on: the game, your Skylander and the level. - **HD texture packs**: bigger textures in place of the game's own ([how](docs/texture-packs.md)). - **Languages:** English and German. The game's settings in Core of Light Its settings in Core of Light, the same pages as in the game's own menu (F4). The game's own pictures aren't shown here: they're Activision's.
## Controls The game plays as it always did. On top of that: | | Controller | Keyboard | |---|---|---| | Portal menu (put figures on) | Guide, or Back + Start | F6 | | Take figures off | Back + Y | F5 | | Settings | Back + RB | F4 | | Achievements | in the settings, under Game | F7 | | Which controller plays which player | L3 + R3 | F9 | The settings menu shows the keyboard keys for the game itself under Controls.
## How far it is The tutorial and Woodburrow have been played through with a controller and with the keyboard, cutscenes and dialogue included. The rest of the game should work the same way, but nobody has played it to the end yet. If something breaks further in, please [tell me](https://github.com/tsapZ/SwapForceRecomp/issues/new/choose). What's being worked on: [docs/roadmap.md](docs/roadmap.md). Known bugs and the details: [docs/STATUS.md](docs/STATUS.md).
## Help **The setup says it's the wrong disc.** This port is made for one version of the game (see [Which disc](#which-disc)). If you have another one, open an issue with the message (it names the disc's title, region and hash). **It runs slowly.** Press F4, go to Graphics and pick *Performance*, or a lower internal resolution. The first visit to a new area can stutter for a moment while the graphics card's shaders are made; after that it's smooth. **Where are my saves and figures?** Saves in `Documents\Skylanders\Swap Force`, figures in `Documents\Skylanders\Figures` (shared by all six games). Core of Light can export all of it for a new PC. **Why are there no screenshots of the game?** They'd show its artwork, which belongs to Activision. The picture above is its settings page in Core of Light, the banner our own drawing. ## Which disc The European Xbox 360 disc with English and German (PAL, title `415608E9`). Its SHA-256 is in [docs/game/default.xex.sha256](docs/game/default.xex.sha256); the setup, the game and the launcher check it. Another pressing with the same code (another language set, for example) works as well: they also compare the code part of the file ([docs/game/default.xex.code](docs/game/default.xex.code)). Other regions usually have other code and don't work yet. ## Reporting a problem Open an [issue](https://github.com/tsapZ/SwapForceRecomp/issues/new/choose) with the **Problem** form: what you did and what happened. It helps a lot to attach the report from Core of Light (**LB**, the launcher's settings, > **Report a problem**, or the question it asks after a crash). That's one text file on your desktop with the latest logs and settings, your Windows user name taken out. Without the launcher, the logs are in the `logs` folder next to the game's exe.
## Why this exists I wanted to play the Xbox 360 Skylanders games on my PC with just a controller, no emulator, and with a nicer picture. That's really all it is: a private fan project. It's public in case someone else wants the same. ## How it was made To be upfront about it: almost all of the code here was written by [Claude](https://claude.ai) in Claude Code, the recompile setup, the fixes, the portal menu, the launcher and the installer, and most of the docs too. I decided what to build, said what was broken and played the games a lot. If AI-made projects aren't your thing, that's fair.
## For developers The game's Xbox 360 code is recompiled to x86-64 with [ReXGlue](https://github.com/rexglue/rexglue-sdk) (no CPU emulation); the graphics go through Xenia's D3D12 path. This repository holds only our own code: the recompiled game code is made on your PC from your disc's `default.xex` when you build. Building needs Windows, Visual Studio 2022 (C++ workload and C++ Clang tools), CMake, Ninja, just, Git and Python 3. Run everything from the **x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022**: git clone --recursive https://github.com/tsapZ/SwapForceRecomp.git cd SwapForceRecomp just regen-release (code generation; needs the game's default.xex in rom/) just build-release just play-release `just package-installer` builds the setup. Details: [docs/development.md](docs/development.md) and [docs/build.md](docs/build.md); all docs in [docs/README.md](docs/README.md). The banner and the button at the top are drawn by Core of Light's [`tools/make_banner.ps1`](https://github.com/tsapZ/SkylandersCoreOfLight/blob/main/tools/make_banner.ps1). ## Credits - **[GiantsRecomp](https://github.com/TheBiemGamer/GiantsRecomp)** by TheBiemGamer brought Skylanders Giants to PC and is the template for this project: build setup, tooling and workflow (MIT). - **[ReXGlue SDK](https://github.com/rexglue/rexglue-sdk)** by Tom Clay is the recompiler and runtime everything here is built on. It comes from the [Xenia](https://xenia.jp) emulator (Ben Vanik and contributors) and is inspired by [XenonRecomp](https://github.com/hedge-dev/XenonRecomp) by hedge-dev. Used as a submodule, in TheBiemGamer's fork with our fixes on top; keeps its own license. - **[skylanders-portal](https://github.com/TheBiemGamer/skylanders-portal)** by TheBiemGamer provides the portal protocol, software and USB portal, overlay and figure catalog. Submodule, in a fork with the shared portal and settings menus on top; keeps its own license. - **[extract-xiso](https://github.com/XboxDev/extract-xiso)** is included (prebuilt, unmodified) in `installer/` to unpack an Xbox 360 ISO. It keeps its own license (`installer/extract-xiso.LICENSE.txt`). - Figure save-data decoding builds on public reverse-engineering of the Skylanders NFC format, among others **[SkyReader](https://github.com/reedstrm/SkyReader)**. Skylanders is a trademark of Activision. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Activision. ## License The code and documentation in this repository are released under the [MIT license](LICENSE). That doesn't cover the game or its data, which you need to own and supply yourself, or the third-party components in `thirdparty/`, which keep their own licenses.