You can play PS2 games in a browser now, recompiled from the original code

PlayStation 2 games are running in a web browser, no emulator attached. The hobbyist project ps2-web-recomp has Gran Turismo 4 and God of War II playing in the browser, and a race runs “at full speed, 50 frames per second for this PAL release, in Chrome on a laptop’s integrated GPU” (the project’s README).

The method is translation rather than emulation. “The game’s Emotion Engine machine code is translated ahead of time into C++, compiled to WebAssembly,” linked “against a reimplementation of the PS2’s operating system and hardware that draws with WebGPU” (README). The game’s own code becomes browser code before you press play, so nothing has to sit there pretending to be a PlayStation while you race.

Gran Turismo 4 was picked as the stress test because “it is one of the most demanding games on the system,” and God of War II “holds 60 frames per second in heavy combat” (README). Two games is the entire catalog, and the README warns the next one “will most likely stop at a system call or an IOP library function nobody implemented yet.”

The legal side is handled the right way. “No game data is included here,” the README says. “Use disc images of games you own,” and since the translated builds are “translations of the game’s executable,” keep them “on your own machine and do not publish them.” The project is “not affiliated with or endorsed by Sony” (README). Hacker News took to this method twice: the author’s PSP version drew 247 points on October 7; this one, 264 points and 141 comments today (Hacker News).

If you want to try it, the README’s bar is a WebGPU browser, cross-origin-isolated hosting and about 300 MB of disk per game, plus your own discs. If you love old hardware like I do, the takeaway is the method: this is how software outlives the chip it was built for.

Emulators used to be the only way back into an old console. Now the game itself gets translated.