It’ll be a very, very long time before PlayStation 4 games can be played at a level that’s equivalent to their console counterparts, but one developer has hit a major milestone. According to Inori – the emulator’s author – GPCS4 has managed to boot and run its first commercial title, a 2D twin-stick shooter called We Are Doomed.
The game isn’t actually playable in its current state (“the FPS is very low”), nor is it graphically intensive in any sense of the word, but this is interesting progress nonetheless and testament to the ingenuity of the emulation scene. Sooner or later, we’ll be able to run classics such as Bloodborne and Uncharted 4 on PC, which should be very cool to see on future GPUs.
Inori also got the first 2D image demo working on GPCS4, which is rendered in the 3D pipeline. Even PlatinumGames’s hack-and-slasher NieR: Automata can be booted, but the output isn’t quite right and requires substantial work.
GPCS4 is currently hosted at GitHub for anyone who wants to give it a spin. There’s a short Developer Guide to get things up and running, but an official Discord channel is also available for those with additional questions.