Forget emulators, native ports of PS2 games may be closer than ever

While emulation continues to make baby steps toward better compatibility, game decompilations and recompilations offer a different pathway toward game preservation. Instead of running the original game files, they transform them into code that runs on PCs and other modern hardware. Now, for the first time, it’s looking like a new console is joining the party: the Sony PlayStation 2.

A new tool called PS2Recomp has gained significant attention, mostly thanks to a viral Tweet from yesterday. Although it’s far from being finished, the goal is to statically recompile PS2 games into modern C++. Combined with the right renderer, this code can then be turned into a native PC port with significantly better performance than any traditional emulator can offer.

These offer other benefits too, like higher resolutions, more graphical options, new control schemes, and even mods. That’s the case with the most advanced recompilation tool, N64: Recompiled, which the developer behind PS2Recomp lists as an inspiration.

N64: Recompiled, as the name implies, is focused on Nintendo 64 games, and it’s been used to create native PC ports of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Banjo-Kazooie, Star Fox 64, Mystical Ninja: Goemon, and others. Thanks to a major update last year, these ports also offer drag-and-drop mod support, with more than 120 mods already available for Majora’s Mask.

That’s not the only recompilation tool in the works, with others like XenonRecomp and XenosRecomp to enable (relatively) quick ports of Xbox 360 games, starting with Sonic Unleashed. GameCube also has a few tools in the works, some of which were used to help decompile Mario Party 4 last year.

Granted, none of these create instant, playable ports. They all require significant dev work before they result in usable code for a single game. Still, it’s much faster than manual decompilation efforts, which involve painstakingly reverse-engineering a game’s code line by line.

While PS2Recomp isn’t nearly as far along as other recompilation tools, the attention gained in the past few days could lead to significant improvements. Developers are already lining up to help test and improve it, and a Discord server is currently in the works.

Stay tuned for more information in the coming months, but don’t expect any major changes any time soon. These tools are critical for game preservation, but they take months and years to develop.