The developer of a fan-made version of the 1995 hit video game originally released for the first PlayStation has given Sony an interesting challenge. Dominic Szablewski has painstakingly worked on extracting and reconstructing the original source code in order to restore the game. The efforts for this project are detailed in a very lengthy blog where it’s clear that following the first version of the game numerous developers took the laziest routes possible and continued to pile more lackluster code on top of it as time went on.
Play the original wipEout in your browser: https://t.co/6WpTgi1ySq
— Dominic Szablewski (@phoboslab) August 10, 2023
Also check out the in-depth "Making-of" in my blog: https://t.co/9c7qmkoBrj pic.twitter.com/KAYMlbp4yE
WipEout (aka wipE’out), while not the first of its kind for futuristic racing video games, pushed the original PlayStation to its limits with impressive visuals, game design, and soundtrack. A version made its way to PC via the “Wipeout ATI 3D Rage Edition” which was bundled with select ATI graphics cards. Originally developed by UK company Psygnognis (well known for its Atari ST and Amiga games at the time) the game went on to be published in the US and the rest of the world but each iteration became a more cut/copy/paste version of the last. Meanwhile, a source code for the PSX version was leaked last year leading to multiple efforts by various individuals to revive the game.
Per Dominic Szablewski (via his blog PhobosLab):
“I’m not the only one who embarked on a path to restore the game. To my knowledge, there are two other efforts ongoing: WipEout Phantom Edition and a yet unnamed project by XProger. Both offer more features than my rewrite. If you’re on Windows and you just want to enjoy the game, these are the better option.”
“However, neither the Phantom Edition nor XProger’s version come with the source code. Understandably so. The legality of re-distributing the leaked source is questionable at best.”
Challenges of being the developer of a fan-made project
Dominic has demonstrated an exceptional skillset in attempting to restore the game from such fragmented and questionable sources. The above video is an example of it running on an M2 Macbook using Linux. As the developer of a fan-made restoration project, Dominic notes the many limitations of adapting a 30 FPS game to modern technology along with programming strategies employed for older hardware. Dominic is not afraid to mention that there are still plenty of bugs to fix and even asks for others to contribute their expertise, but don’t ask for the source code, and also adds that Sony should either leave this project alone or release its own remaster. The closest that Sony has come to this recently is the 2017 WipEout Omega Collection for the PS4 and a new cell-shaded game for Android/iOS that was announced in 2021.
Per PhobosLab:
“There’s still lot’s of bugs to fix (both old and new) and more features to implement. If you want to help, please stop by over at github.com/phoboslab/wipeout-rewrite, clone the source and build the game yourself. You’ll need the wipeout-data-v01.zip to run it. I will not provide the executable for any platform; please don’t ask.”
“If anyone at Sony is reading this, please consider that you have (in my opinion) two equally good options: either let it be, or shut this thing down and get a real remaster going.”