🗡️🐎 shadowofthecolossus — Static Recompilation

A static recompilation of Shadow of the Colossus (PS3, NPUA-80677), Bluepoint's HD remaster, into a native Windows executable, built on ps3recomp. No emulator at runtime.

Status

Unreleased, pre-alpha. It boots, opens a window and flips. It draws nothing yet.

The EBOOT lifts clean (16,114 functions, 0 unhandled instructions), the eight embedded SPU modules lift with it, and the first run reaches cellGcmInit, registers both display buffers and runs the flip loop against an empty command stream. It stalls before it opens nico.psarc because ps3recomp does not yet implement SPURS 2.0 — see docs/spurs2-wall.md.

Last built and run: 2026-09-05, against ps3recomp as of that date. Not yet rebuilt against ps3recomp v0.16.0 (2026-10-19); the build layout and every toolkit script tools/relift.sh calls are unchanged there.

Phase	Status
Extract, decrypt, find functions, resolve NIDs	✅ 180 imports, 173 named
Lift PPU	✅ 16,114 functions, 0 unhandled
Lift SPU	✅ 8 images
Build	✅ 45 MB shadow.exe
First boot	✅ reaches cellGcmInit + flip loop
PSARC (nico.psarc via HLE cellFs)	⬜
Graphics (live NV4097 → D3D12)	🟡 engine up, 0 draw packets
SPURS (job queue into the lifted images)	⬜ blocked on SPURS 2.0 upstream
Input / audio	⬜

Per-session detail is in PROGRESS.md.

Conformance: this port is not yet registered in ps3recomp's regression gate (tools/regress_ports.toml), so there is no milestone count to report.

Screenshots

None yet: every frame so far is an empty clear. The first one that draws goes here.

Getting Started

You need your own copy of the PSN package. This repository contains no game code, assets or keys, and never will.

Quick start

Not available yet. A Setup.cmd is on the roadmap; until then use the steps below.

Step by step

Prerequisites: Windows 10/11, Python 3.9+ (py if python opens the Microsoft Store), CMake 3.20+, Ninja, LLVM clang-cl, an RPCS3 build (only for --decrypt), and a sibling ps3recomp checkout with its runtime built (build/ps3recomp_runtime.lib).

1. Unpack the package into the repo folder:

   python ../ps3recomp/tools/pkg_extract.py pkg/<name>.pkg extracted
   

2. Decrypt the EBOOT. Use the debug-signed EBOOT from the update package; it needs no key (the retail one needs a RAP, which this repo does not use):

   rpcs3 --decrypt game/EBOOT.BIN      # 5,297,872 B SELF -> 21,060,328 B ELF
   

3. Lift PPU + SPU and generate the HLE NID table (Git Bash):

   PS3RECOMP=../ps3recomp ./tools/relift.sh
   

4. Build. Release matters: an unoptimised build of 101 MB of generated C++ measured 3x slower on the sister ports. llvm-rc is needed because clang-cl outside a VS dev prompt cannot find rc.exe.

   cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja \
       -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER="C:/Program Files/LLVM/bin/clang-cl.exe" \
       -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER="C:/Program Files/LLVM/bin/clang-cl.exe" \
       -DCMAKE_RC_COMPILER="C:/Program Files/LLVM/bin/llvm-rc.exe"
   cmake --build build
   

5. Point vfs/PS3_GAME at the unpacked package (a directory junction is enough; it is 6 GB) and run. Expected today: a window, a flip loop, and the FIOS workers parking on wait for invalid cond 'fios worker cond'.

The generated source (src/recomp/, src/gen/, src/spu_gen/) lands in git-ignored directories and is never distributed.

Usage

./tools/run.sh    # sets PS3_VFS_ROOT, PS3_HDD0_ROOT, RSX_LIVE_DRAW=1; extra args go to shadow.exe

There is no --headless --record mode yet; it belongs in ps3recomp's boot harness and is on the roadmap.

Building from source

Steps 3–4 above. tools/relift.sh explains its flags inline; the reasoning behind --code-end 0x4ECD54, the decrypt route and the SPU images is in docs/lifting.md.

  PSN PKG ─► USRDIR/EBOOT.BIN ─► .elf ─► ppu_lifter ─► C++ ─┐
              (NPDRM SELF)    (decrypt)  (16,114 fns)       ├─► link ps3recomp ─► shadow.exe
                              8 SPU ELFs ─► spu_lifter ─►───┘        (harness + HLE)
           USRDIR/SHADOW/nico.psarc (6.0 GiB) ────────────────────► game data (fed, not lifted)

License

MIT, covering this repository's own tooling, scripts and notes. It does not cover, and this repository does not distribute, PS3 firmware, game code, game assets or keys. pkg/, extracted/, game/, vfs/, analysis/ and the lifted output are git-ignored. There is no RAP, klicensee or key of any kind in this repository or its history.

Contributors

See CONTRIBUTORS.md. Contributions are welcome under CONTRIBUTING.md; please read "Where your code comes from" first.

Related projects

This port is one of the ps3recomp titles and follows the shared recomp house style. Fixes the runtime needs go upstream there, not here.

• flOw · simpsonsarcade-ps3 — sister ports of the same shape
• tmpsn — Twisted Metal PSOne Classic, the firmware-emulator port this one was first expected to resemble
• RPCS3 — used here as a black-box tool (--decrypt) and as a behavioural oracle; no RPCS3 code is in this repo