It makes sense that Sony would have their own emulator for the PlayStation 1, or PS1, or PSX, or whatever we’re calling it these days. It’s not like Sony hasn’t released classic PS1 games for newer consoles, and that’s pretty much always done via emulation rather than porting them. So where does Medievil fit in? The game was remastered last year, giving us a more modern looking game, but if you completed it, you could unlock the original PS1 version.
Medievil Remaster Was Hiding a Native PSOne Emulator All Along
Modders managed to gain access to the emulator when a firmware update allowed them access to the backend files, or at least something to that effect. What they found was a native application capable of running original PS1 roms. So it’s simply a case of them renaming a few files, importing the new rom, and ta-da, they had Silent Hill, Spyro the Dragon, Wipeout 3 and others running.
Now, this is early days, and I’m sure others will figure out the various options for it to fix issues. However, Silent Hill running in 4K on the PS4 Pro is still amusing, even with the graphical errors.
Oh wow, do youse remember how in the PS4 remake of Medievil you can unlock the original PS1 version of the game? Turns out there’s a whole PS1 emulator in there. Silent Hill running around 4K on a PS4 Pro is … not perfect 🤣 pic.twitter.com/tM3pSTaDjq
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) July 18, 2020
What’s Next?
Well, nothing that we know of. However, I’m sure there are modders out there trying to learn what they can from this emulator. Perhaps there’s something in the code that can aide with improving other PlayStation emulators. Now we just need native support for previous generations on the PlayStation 5, please.
What games would you like to see ported, remastered, or even just emulated on modern consoles? Let us know in the comments below.
