The premise is to have another “jailbroken” PS5.
In 2015, after Hideo Kojima left Konami, the demo “PT” released on the PS4 console was removed from the PlayStation Store, and the game files were completely deleted from the PS Store server.
After that, if you want to play the original “PT” on PS4, you must use means that are not allowed by the user agreement. Players who already have “PT” in their PS store account need to download the game through a fan-made proxy server. Later players can only crack their PS4 and directly download and install the game files.
PT game files uploaded to the Internet Archive
Years later, Konami has not let go of the next-generation Sony console PS5.
PS5 supports backward compatibility, allowing the vast majority of PS4 games in player accounts to be transferred to PS5 to run, and it stands to reason that PT is also supported. However, in a statement on the eve of the PS5’s release, Konami publicly announced that because “PT” has been removed from the PS store, users cannot transfer “PT” to PS5 through the backward compatibility function.
In October 2020, an editor of foreign media Polygon conducted a compatibility test on the PS5 received in advance, and the first game tested was “PT”. According to reports, he managed to get into the game without encountering any apparent issues.
But in November, after the last system update before the release, the editor was never able to enter “PT” again, and when he tried to start the game, only the “This PS4 game can’t run on PS5” dialog box popped up on the screen. . Polygon consulted Sony, and the answer was, “It’s the publisher’s decision.”
This decision cannot hide the fact that the PS5 is hardware compatible with PT. As long as the terms of use are ignored, the possibility of playing PT on PS5 still exists.
In early October 2022, a hacker who goes by the name SpecterDev disclosed a cyber vulnerability on the PS5. This vulnerability can help users “jailbreak” and obtain read and write permissions for PS5 system files.
Since users cannot run any external files with the help of the vulnerability, this finding does not yet count as a full PS5 hack. And the vulnerability has been fixed by the latest version of the PS5 system, which is only available on version 4.51 or lower systems released in March this year.
The readme file uploaded by the hacker on Github (machine translation)
Lance McDonald was one of the first players on Twitter to retweet the “jailbreak” exploit. McDonald is a video blogger and senior “islandologist” who has been digging up the unknown details of “PT” in recent years, and occasionally criticizes Konami on Twitter, complaining about his “respect for “Silent Hill” and the historic sheer malice shown by PT”.
On October 4th, McDonald exploited the vulnerability to enter the PS5’s debug menu and installed “PT” via USB transfer, thereby bypassing the blacklist restrictions of the PS store, but failed to launch the game. He believes that there is still a second list in the PS5 system file. Because of the existence of this list, even if you log in to the PS account with “PT” and successfully install the game, you will still encounter “This PS4 game cannot be played on PS5.” Run” dialog box.
On October 6, mod author Michael Kemp tweeted that he had found a whitelist in the PS5 system files that recorded PS4 games that were allowed to run on the PS5. After exploiting the vulnerability to modify the whitelist, the demo of Resident Evil 7, which is only available on PS4, can also run perfectly on PS5.
before fixing
after modification
In theory, as long as “PT” is also added to the whitelist, the dream of countless fans has been within reach. But McDonald skipped this step and went to the next crazy step: running PT on a PS5 with the latest system and never modified any files.
Judging by another provocative tweet from Konami on October 17, he did.
“Eat sh*t, Konami!”
Later in the day, McDonald went live on Twitch to explain how. The principle is actually very simple. You only need to use the data backup function of the PS5, and the backed up system files include the whitelist.
But the implementation cost is a bit high. McDonald used his store account where he legally owned PT, and had two PS5s on hand. A PS5 has been “jailbroken”, and he made modifications on this machine to whitelist “PT”. He then backed up the system data with a USB stick and transferred the data to a second unmodified PS5, overriding the whitelist, thus bypassing any restrictions on running PT on the new PS5.
McDonald speculates that since few players have two PS5s at the same time, and one of them has been “jailbroken,” the situation he encountered is definitely a rare “edge case.” That doesn’t mean Sony won’t take steps, such as preventing backups from replacing the whitelist in upcoming system updates, or banning all of McDonald’s PS Store accounts outright.
Although Konami recently intends to resume the “Silent Hill” IP and is ready to announce the news of the new work, their attitude towards “PT” may not be improved. In principle, it is not advisable to modify the host file. To experience the orthodox “PT” on PS5, just like McDonald’s public provocation of Konami on Twitter, requires a lot of awareness.