Ripalda built a recomp store for jailbroken PS5s. Next up: RecompLauncher, for PC

RecompStore came first, as a PS5 homebrew app. The idea was to take games that were stuck in the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation and make native versions that run on the PS5. At first it was going to be a storefront for my own PS5 recompilations, and a place to share the community’s, which weren’t really being showcased unless they hit Reddit or went viral on X. People enjoyed the project, and a lot of them said this is something they’d love to see on PC. That got me thinking about doing a PC side of what I was already doing, and that became RecompLauncher.

It’s not super crazy. Luckily I was able to set something up that notifies me every few hours about new recompilation releases and updates through various platforms. Then I review each one by hand to make sure it’s a quality project that fits the site. If it meets that standard, we’d love to include it and give it the display it deserves.

Not at first. In the beginning I was just finding recomps I enjoyed, and it grew from there. Honestly, I was a little worried at first. I hoped nobody would take it the wrong way, like I was trying to steal their work. But it’s been the complete opposite. The developers I’ve heard from are grateful their project got picked up and shared on the site, and I haven’t had any backlash. I’ve reached out to some developers myself, and for the most part they’re excited to see their project on a clean home page where people can easily find it and play their recompilation.

This scene just started, and it’s growing every day. New consoles keep getting jailbroken, and with the rise of AI, things that used to take years to break open are happening much faster. If we want to keep it, there has to be a right way to do it. The right way is for people to bring their own legally obtained copy of the game. The recomp only rebuilds the game to run natively; your copy supplies the game itself. That’s the foundation, and it’s what keeps the community alive. I don’t want to ship something I don’t legally own, and I don’t want anyone coming after me. I think everyone in the community feels the same way. We all want this to keep growing, and that only works if we do it right, unless we want big companies knocking at our door.

Both! Wrestling games were some of the first recompilations I saw people really interested in, and they’re the genre that pulled me into recomps. For me they’re personal. They’re the games that brought me comfort as a kid, especially SmackDown vs. Raw 2007. That game never came to the PS3, and it was one of the first wrestling recompilations ever brought to PC. Pretty much every other wrestling game got a recompilation after that. A lot of people grew up on these games, so there’s a real nostalgia factor. My PS5 port of SmackDown vs. Raw 2007, built on HollywoodAkeem’s recomp, is the one that brought a lot of eyes to RecompStore.

For most of them, the PC version of the recomp was already out there, open source on GitHub. That work is what cracks the game open. A recomp takes the original Xbox 360 code and translates it into C++, so it can be built as a real native program instead of being emulated. From there I build it for the PS5. That means swapping the Xbox controls for PS5 buttons, getting the graphics running on the PS5, and adjusting the game piece by piece until it feels like a native port. I know the basics of coding, and the rapid advancement of AI models speeds this process up massively. If you’re tech savvy, it’s not as complicated as it sounds.

I’ll be frank: I didn’t reach out to them first. Their work is open source, and anyone can fork it. I use their work, and sometimes their fixes for specific bugs I run into. My first priority is always to give them top-of-the-marquee credit. Without their work, these ports wouldn’t run nearly as well. They took the time to get most of it working, so credit always goes where it’s due.

The only reason I got into this is that I bought a PS5 Pro for GTA 6. I’d disconnected my old PS5, and it happened to stay on an older firmware that could be jailbroken. I’ve always been a tinkerer. As a kid I was deep into iPhone jailbreaking, so exploring this new wave of PS5 jailbreaking has been awesome. And if I was doing it, a lot of other people were too. With Sony’s controversial move away from discs, a lot of people are upset, maybe don’t want to keep giving Sony money, and want to use their console the way they want. Since the new jailbreak came out, the community has skyrocketed to hundreds of thousands of people, and it’s only going to get bigger with newer firmwares reportedly being jailbroken. The people using these just want to preserve their physical libraries and play them how they want. A fellow dev friend of mine, Sword, is absolutely cooking right now with his PS2 and PS3 emulators that run from physical discs. That’s a massive breakthrough for preservation, and I’m super proud of what he and his team have done.

RecompLauncher is really close to its first release. That release will be Windows and Linux, and Mac comes after. The goal is to get it on those systems, have people try it, and keep developing it from there. Some of our key features need developers to add one extra step to their recompilations, so it’ll grow as those relationships do.

For RecompStore, we’ll keep growing it with more PS5 recomps, whether they’re mine or from the people doing great work every day. We’re also watching the Switch 2 scene closely. It still has a long way to go before we see anything like what’s happened on PS5, but I’m very interested in being part of it. I’ve already been working on an ARM build of Porpoise, so when full homebrew can run on the Switch 2, Porpoise will most likely be there day one for people to play their GameCube and Wii games.

Those are all great launchers. If one of them does what you want, lets you find games and install them quickly, and works for you, I’m perfectly happy for you. What we’re building is an experience that works for the hardcore gamer and for people just starting to scratch the surface: someone with a new PC, a casual gamer, or someone on a handheld. I wanted a more seamless experience than I was getting from the others. They do great things at their core, but I think a launcher backed by this community can offer a lot more.

Cloud saves are one example. If you play on a setup at your TV and on a handheld, you can pick up your progress on either one. Another is the launcher reading your library of backups and telling you right away which of your games have a recompilation. When a new recompilation comes out for a game you’ve backed up, it lets you know it was released so you can give it a shot. On top of that, it gives a better front end to people who like a console feel, or the built-in app experience on their handheld. Those are the things that make us different and give people a reason to try something new, and we hope gamers of all shapes and sizes enjoy it.

As for the recomp scene, it’s exploding right now, and I expect it to keep exploding. People love their old games, and this lets them experience those games in a new way. It doesn’t rely on emulators, and it can be expanded with mods and enhancements more easily than ever before. A lot of people probably dreamed about this at one point: playing a game you grew up with on your PS2 natively on your PC or your PS5. It’s growing every day. People are excited about playing their own games however they want, and so am I.

I'm just super grateful for the impact I've been able to have so far in the PS5 jailbreaking community. Now I'm stepping into the PC world, which is just straight up bigger, and I hope I can keep making stuff people enjoy. We've had some good success so far, and I'm ready to take everything to the next level and give people a nice, free platform to enjoy their games.