We've Played The First PS3-Emulated Game For PS5

The first PlayStation 3-emulated game running on PlayStation 5 is here, and it's not a title you might have expected. Cloudberry Kingdom - originally developed by Pwnee Studios in 2013 - is a procedurally generated platform game that launched for PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii U. Out now in Asia courtesy of RedoApps, and set for imminent release in the Western market, the package ships with native PS4 and PS4 versions, along with a bonus: the original PS3 release is included, running under emulation on PS5.

The new developer, RedoApps, is a small firm - a partnership between Sayed Mahmood Alawi and Jean-Philip Desjardins. The pair tell us they spent the last couple of years creating the RedoEngine - a suite of PS1, PS2 and PS3 emulators. The PS3 part of the engine has no relation to the existing RPCS3 emulator and operates in a very different way, as Alawi explains:

"It's tough to compare directly to RPCS3. They're a community-driven emulator with 10+ years of development time and countless testers, so they can easily tell you how many games run, how well, and what issues they have," he says.

"While we do aim to do broad testing, you can imagine that it's hard to match community-driven testing. Furthermore, In our case, the emulator was built with commercial intent in mind. Because of that, we've gone the HLE route, and since Sony made save states mainstream in their emulation, we've also included RedoStates. While we do aim to have our emulators compatible with as many games as possible, development will be tailored to each title we work on."

An HLE emulator is a different beast entirely to low-level emulation, which seeks to capture the characteristics of individual components of a given piece of hardware. A High-Level Emulator (HLE) instead focuses on delivering the same behavioral outcomes as original hardware, which is how the RedoEngine tackles the biggest challenge in running PlayStation 3 software: emulating the custom, exotic SPUs - the most forward-looking element of the PS3 architecture.

"About the SPU, we agree it's likely to be a nightmare when it comes to AAA games and how they used it. For that we're using a hybrid approach where we HLE SPU functions to avoid expensive and unnecessary back and forth and various timing issues," Alawi tells us.

"To give you an example with Cloudberry Kingdom, its SPU usage is limited to audio and video decoding. When emulated, that's a very expensive operation, so we hooked those calls and replaced them with native console implementations. As a matter of fact, we've actually completely disabled the SPU for this release."

Cloudberry Kingdom is, by RedoApps' admission, a "fairly niche indie title" but the technology was tested with 10 games as it was prepared for Cloudberry Kingdom "to avoid writing an emulator that only works with one game."

"Our test selection ranges from indie titles to AA and AAA games," adds Alawai. "One of the AA titles is SPU-heavy, so we might be able to comment on SPU performance sometime down the line. We'd rather not name them though, since even though there's no correlation with a potential release, we expect the publishers wouldn't be happy to hear us talk about their titles."

Buying the Cloudberry Kingdom package on the PlayStation Store gives you access to three downloadables: the native PS4 and PS5 apps, alongside the Cloudberry Kingdom: PlayStation 3 Edition. This is also a PS5 app, running the RedoEngine emulator. Loading up this version, you're presented with a very Sony-like joypad explainer, detailing how the Dual Shock 3 controls map onto today's Dual Sense controller.

Pausing the game also exhibits different behaviour between the PS5 native and PS3 emulated versions: on the latter, there is support for save states, for example. From thereon out, the game presents very similarly to the PS5 version, just running at a lower resolution (1080p, in line with the original, 4K on PS5) - and with a few minor issues that will be addressed in an upcoming patch.

"Some levels have seams visible in the background, the other is an audio hitch that happens when a new level is loaded - that particular one is due to how we handle threading, both are issues we plan to fix, but we didn’t want to hold up the release because of them," says Alawi.

In a Q&A supplied after initial comms, RedoApps suggested that its PS3 emulation could come to other platforms, but "definitely not on Switch or mobile. We do have the ability to support multiple platforms, so that decision will remain the publisher's choice."

Obviously, a simpler game like Cloudberry Kingdom isn't exactly going to be the most challenging fare for emulation, so the concept of running high-end titles like the MotorStorm trilogy remains a pipedream, but there is a small hint of optimism from RedoApps:

"We’re planning to start by targeting PS3 indie titles, but at the end of the day we want to bring back all PS3 era games, from indie titles like Cloudberry Kingdom to blockbuster AAA titles," says Sayed Mahmood Alawi. "Because of the PS3 SPU, bringing back AAA titles to the PS5 is probably going to be brutal, but not impossible."