Friday, September 25th 2026
AnyPS5 Project Skips Emulation Entirely, Aims to Port PlayStation 5 Games to PC Directly
A new open-source project called AnyPS5 aims to run PlayStation 5 games natively on Windows and Linux, without emulation. Its GitHub page describes it as a tool that relinks PS5 executables into the host system's native format and reimplements the console's system libraries for dynamic linking, similar in concept to Wine or Proton. Since the PS5 already runs on x86-64 Zen 2 hardware, close to a modern PC, AnyPS5 skips CPU emulation and recompiles shaders into SPIR-V for Vulkan instead.
As for progress, the developer says execution now reaches a game's main function, with exception handling built out, and the shader recompiler produces SPIR-V that validates cleanly. The repo's status notes claim a real game reaches its logo, main menu, and some gameplay with audio, though there's no public build to verify that yet. No releases exist, and the developer says one won't go out until a game fully launches through the tool. It's tempting to think about God of War Laufey or GTA 6 running on a PC through AnyPS5, but that's not realistic anytime soon. AnyPS5 hasn't run a full game yet, and going by how long PS4 and PS3 compatibility work took, that tends to take years.
Sony's pullback from porting single-player exclusives to PC probably explains some of the interest here. That, combined with Sony's decision to end physical disc production by 2028, seems to have spurred an emulation race. Separate PS5 emulators like KytyPS5 have shown noticeable progress too, briefly running GTA 5 at up to 60 FPS before crashing, and also making the jump over to Xbox Series X. As for AnyPS5, it's still in very early stages, but its unique approach is surely one to keep an eye on as it develops.
Source:
AnyPS5 (GitHub)
As for progress, the developer says execution now reaches a game's main function, with exception handling built out, and the shader recompiler produces SPIR-V that validates cleanly. The repo's status notes claim a real game reaches its logo, main menu, and some gameplay with audio, though there's no public build to verify that yet. No releases exist, and the developer says one won't go out until a game fully launches through the tool. It's tempting to think about God of War Laufey or GTA 6 running on a PC through AnyPS5, but that's not realistic anytime soon. AnyPS5 hasn't run a full game yet, and going by how long PS4 and PS3 compatibility work took, that tends to take years.
18 Comments on AnyPS5 Project Skips Emulation Entirely, Aims to Port PlayStation 5 Games to PC Directly
Sony legals would already be working on a cease to resist notice.
So, unless the project is distributing binaries from a console or the games, Sony has no legal standing. And even if this project taps into the API calls, again, as long as they're not using any binaries from the console or games, that's legal per Google v. Oracle.
Example: Emulating PS1 back in 1997 was cool from a tech standpoint and actually made sense because vast, vast, vastttt majority of console games were console only. In 1999 if you wanted to play Crash Bandicoot, it was either buy a PS1 or take the PSEmu/Bleem emulator route. Nowadays you can play your AAA titles on your PS5, your fridge display, your digital thermometer.....
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Example: GTA
we can dreamIt starts to matter the moment there is a real system seller out of Sony's stable again.
So yeah, it matters zero atm :D
Emulating PS5 is like: "Oh, this small factor AMD Ryzen PC with a Sony badge plays AMD Ryzen PC stuff? Cool..." Emulation dev nowadays is just breaking through several layers of abstracted DRM and Sony/Microsoft low level hardware locks. Games themselves? The most sold games for PS5, like Spidercrap stuff and GTAV, are available on Windows already among other things, which means your $10 grocery store calcuator, your Apple Smartwatch, etc, etc, can all play all that crapola anyway... and none of these new emulators actually add anything. Its the same games you can get on steam 99% of time and it looks/plays worse.
Also 1997 only saw about 25 new games released in Japan. Half that in North America and EU. And most of those games I'd say weren't anything to write home about. The only titles that stuck out to me were Kirby's Dreamland 3, Arkanoid: Doh it Again, and Super Bomberman 5.
And not to discredit the ZSNES developers, but bleem and Ultra HLE were more impressive. ZSNES was released 7 years after its consoles launch. bleem was released 4 years and Ultra HLE 3 years after their respective console's launch. And both were emulating more complex systems.
rip