Homebrew developer Sword has released PS5SX2, a native PlayStation 2 emulator for jailbroken PlayStation 5 consoles. It is a port of the popular PC emulator PCSX2, with the CPU recompilers adapted to run on the PS5's custom Zen 2 chip. Unlike earlier workarounds that streamed PCSX2 from another host, the PS5 itself handles recompiling and rendering, using Vulkan through a modified translation layer based on Mihawk-99's ps5vk project.
The emulator supports common PS2 disc image formats and physical PS2 DVD discs from all regions, either in the built-in optical drive or an external USB drive. PS2 games released on CD cannot be played because the PS5's drive lacks the laser needed for standard CDs. PS5SX2 also provides 6x resolution scaling over the PS2's native output, reaching up to 4K on modern displays, and supports AMD's FSR and PCSX2 patch files for widescreen or 60 FPS fixes.
Additional features include remote adjustment of graphics, audio, and gameplay settings from a smartphone, online play via an emulated PS2 network adapter, keyboard and mouse input, four-player couch co-op, and virtual memory cards up to 64MB per game. When asked about future disc support, Sword said that PS3 playback is also coming via a port of RPCS3, the PlayStation 3 emulator.