Shadow of the Colossus

PS2

Shadow of the Colossus (LightVelox)

LightVelox/sotc-vibe-pc

An unofficial native Windows port of the PS2 Shadow of the Colossus (PAL, SCES-53326 v1.00), by static recompilation of the PS2 code to C++ with PS2Recomp; it is the PS2 original, not the PS4 remake that is already in the catalog. The EE code and the VU1 microprograms are translated ahead of time and compiled with MSVC, the IOP runs in an emulated R3000 with high-level replacements for disc, memory card, pad, and sound, and the GS is drawn with an OpenGL 4.6 renderer. Its README declares it fully written by AI (Claude and ChatGPT/Codex) and directed by a person. It says boot, the intro, and gameplay work, as do riding Agro, climbing, and fighting; all 16 colossi pass an automated test harness and the early ones have been played by hand; there are memory card saves and save states (F5 and F9), a 60 Hz mode, widescreen, and mouse support. Issues remain, such as an occasional black frame, and only Windows and the PAL v1.00 disc are supported. Version 0.2.0 preview 2 (October 20) is a prebuilt zip of about 22 MB, which therefore carries the translated game code and which we haven’t checked inside. 36 of its 61 commits list Claude as a co-author.

You needYour own .iso dump (2048-byte sectors) of Shadow of the Colossus, Europe and Australia (PAL), SCES-53326 version 1.00, with SHA-256 068925770645266189005f09c9a9a1fee25726bfc93c89b12f832f3673664ac4; the tools only accept that disc and check its hashes. Windows x64 with an AVX2-capable CPU and OpenGL 4.6. To build from source, MSVC x64 (Visual Studio 2022 or newer) and Python 3.10 or newer; the generated code is about 9,000 C++ files and a full build takes around an hour.

PS2

Shadow of the Colossus (HenryKun55)

HenryKun55/celosia

Celosia: a native port for Apple silicon macOS, and also for the PS Vita, of the US PS2 release (SCUS-97472), by static recompilation of the MIPS code to C++ with PS2Recomp. Since the game loads most of its code in three modules (KERNEL.XFF, MANAGER.XFF, and GAMECORE.XFF) that it links in memory, setup captures them one by one while the game boots and recompiles them along with the boot ELF, about 16,000 functions; the VU1 microprograms are turned into C++ too. It no longer emulates the GPU: a native renderer (Metal on the Mac, OpenGL ES on the Vita) reads the game’s models directly, and DMA, the IOP, and sound (SPU2) are reimplemented in native code. It plays from boot into gameplay (riding Agro, exploring), with menus, sound, and a PCSX2-compatible memory card; on an M4 Pro it runs at 60 fps at 1536×1344. It’s also rewriting the most-used functions by hand in C++, checking that they give the same result as the recompiled ones: on October 30 it had 5.4% of the functions, which already take 48% of the calls. On the Vita it boots and plays the intro, at 18 to 25 fps in Vita3K. It has a settings menu (F1) with optional cuts to gain performance and a renderer panel (F10). It’s a separate project from LightVelox’s Windows port, whose notes helped it find shared runtime bugs. There are no releases: it’s built with ./celosia setup from your disc image. The README states it was developed with the help of an AI coding assistant, with the work directed, reviewed, and tested by the author.

You needYour own disc image of Shadow of the Colossus for PS2, US release (SCUS-97472), as an .iso or inside a .zip. An Apple silicon Mac with the Xcode Command Line Tools, Homebrew’s cmake, ninja, pkg-config, ffmpeg, and python, about 10 GB free, and a connection for the first build (CMake downloads raylib, imgui, and sse2neon). For the Vita, also VitaSDK.

PS2

Shadow of the Colossus (TheRealestNwah)

TheRealestNwah/sotc-decomp

Work-in-progress matching decompilation of Shadow of the Colossus for PS2 (NTSC-U, SCUS-97472), with a native PC port as its long-term goal. It aims for C code that, built with the game’s compiler, Sony ee-gcc 2.96, reproduces the original files byte for byte. The SCUS_974.72 loader and the three modules holding the game code (KERNEL.XFF, MANAGER.XFF, and GAMECORE.XFF, in a custom xff2 format) already rebuild identically from assembly, though the table layout and the loader metadata still come from the original files. According to the README, 6,097 of the 7,861 game functions in the three modules (78%) are already matching C, and 114 of the loader’s 124 (92%); the native port hasn’t started. It includes nothing from the game: you need the loader from your own disc. The README states it’s developed with Claude Code and OpenAI Codex, which contribute code, tests, and documentation, while the author decides, tests, and releases. 91 of its last 100 commits list Claude as a co-author.