An unofficial, fan-made PC port of the currently defunct platformer Jak And Daxter (specifically The Precursor Legacy) has surfaced online, and it is the best the game has ever looked since its original release in 2001 for the PlayStation 2.
jak and daxter pc
What's even more amazing about this port, however, is that it's not even running on an emulator, writes Kotaku. The team behind the project actually managed to get a hold of the entire codebase of the game, recompiled it, and made sure that it runs as a native application on PC. This is something that will normally prove difficult to do, because the PS2's hardware is extremely alien compared to that of a PC.
Either way, the unofficial Jak And Daxter PC port is real, and it just released a trailer showcasing the game running in 4K at 60 FPS. This is already far, far beyond how the game used to run on the iconic PlayStation console:
As you can see in the trailer, the unofficial port looks pretty official, all things considered. The image is pretty sharp and well worth what you'd expect from an actual remaster, and the frame rate seems to be pretty stable. Aside from that, the gameplay showcase also features a few closeups of the textures and other assets. They may not be as sharp by normal standards, but it's still great to see a game this old running like a dream on modern hardware.
According to the makers of the Jak And Daxter PC port from the Unreal YouTube channel, the project itself is a complete port of the first game from its original NTSC "black label version." They've released more info about the game and have made it available for download on Github if you want to check it out.
If you're worried, however, that the port will be a bit janky, don't be. That's because the team behind it confirms that you can play the game from start to finish with 100% completion, writes GameRant. But the resolution bump is far from the only improvement on the PS2 classic, as it also reportedly features some quality of life improvements. Among these is full support for 16x9 aspect ratio, subtitles, and full support for Ultra widescreen displays.
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Technical Wizardry
There's so much technical jargon involved in explaining how this project was possible. In the original Kotaku report, the developers said that they had to make a lot of compromises considering how the game's code was written by Naughty Dog in a very proprietary way.
jak and daxter pc
Aside from that, the port is actually not as straight as it is - even if it does run natively on the PC without an emulator. They mentioned how small changes have been made to the game, like adding useful options or removing others "that didn't make sense" to bring the experience to the modern era. Here's what they had to say about it:
We have added a plethora of options to the game settings so that you can have a more up to date experience, or a more PS2-like experience if you deide. It is up to you! There are also a bunch of extra goodies and added secrets to find out. We are aiming to keep the core gameplay (controls, physics, behaviors, etc) identical however, so if you find any issues or differences with this then do not hesitate to tell us about it.
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This article is posted on GameNGuide
Written by RJ Pierce