The creator asks Sony to "let it be" or shut it down and make a real remaster.
Wipeout is a 1995 futuristic racing game developed by Psygnosis, a subsidiary of Sony. If you've ever played it and now miss it dearly, you have a chance to revive those nostalgic feelings as Dominic Szablewski released a fan-made port of the game to be played in your browser.
Szablewski managed to rewrite the game, including its physics, based on the source code leaked in 2022, which apparently was "abysmal". It took a long time to make something playable out of the files, and the creator described his efforts in a detailed post here. Despite the difficulties, the code "still holds up today," and the result is a racer you can try without an issue.
"I'm not the only one who embarked on a path to restore the game. To my knowledge, there are two other efforts ongoing: WipEout Phantom Edition and a yet unnamed project by XProger. Both offer more features than my rewrite. If you're on Windows and you just want to enjoy the game, these are the better option.
However, neither the Phantom Edition nor XProger's version come with the source code. Understandably so. The legality of re-distributing the leaked source is questionable at best."
It is by no means perfect, Szablewski says there are still a lot of bugs to fix and more features to implement, but it is a great game you can play for free. And here is where a potential problem is hiding. Sony hasn't been interested in Wipeout for decades, and it might stay this way, but now, when the port is getting more and more attention, the company could take notice and deny the developer the right to touch it.
So to Sony, Szablewski says: "Please consider that you have (in my opinion) two equally good options: either let it be, or shut this thing down and get a real remaster going." Nicely said. Let's see what happens next.
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