Emulation News: You can now play some PlayStation 3 games online using the RPCS3 emulator thanks to RPCN – Preview builds for Windows & Linux available!

by Aurora · August 2, 2020

Till the late 2000s, a good deal of people had internet in their homes and as a result, a good deal of people enjoyed online gaming on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 & newer consoles at some point in time. Due to this, GalCiv decided to work on a custom PSN server called RPCN which effectively allows for online multiplayer with RPCS3 and it can now be tested out!

Online multiplayer is now possible on RPCS3 with RPCN by GalCiv

A good deal of PlayStation 3 games support online multiplayer and now, RPCS3 has started to support that with Demon’s Souls & Bomberman Ultra being the first on the supported list!

On Friday, RipleyTom (GalCiv) opened on a pull request on RPCS3’s GitHub promising to add online multiplayer functionality to RPCS3, which is the de facto PlayStation 3 emulator for PC, followed by a video published on RPCS3’s YouTube channel demonstrating online gaming on the emulator. From the video’s description, RPCS3’s team give an overview of GalCiv’s work which can be summed up in the following points:

GalCiv has been working on creating a private PSN replacement called RPCN for the past year
RPCN is now mature enough that together with various improvements to RPCS3, it allows for online multiplayer & co-op in PlayStation 3 titles that only need PSN for their online functionality thus not requiring a custom server unless one is already available
In its current form, RPCN is obviously not finished and only a few games work with it but it is undoubtedly very promising
- RPCS3 builds that can work with RPCN are available for testing together with configuration instructions linked below

Games compatible with RPCS3 + RPCN

Bomberman Ultra, a PS3 exclusive, can now be played online through RPCS3!

As of right now, there are only 2 games compatible with RPCS3 + RPCN which are Bomberman Ultra & Demon’s Souls but more titles may be compatible as long as they don’t require a custom custom server so community members are encouraged to test as many games as possible. In the Bomberman Ultra’s case, there may be issues if more than 2 or 3 players attempt to play the game at once which is important to keep in mind if you’re planning to try out this brand new functionality with friends.

Currently, Yuvi is hosting a custom Demon’s Souls RPCS3 server which can be toyed around with by following the instructions found below.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, online multiplayer support in RPCS3 is pretty groundbreaking as it not only allows you to play PlayStation 3 at much higher resolutions on a PC but it also allows for revival of games whose PSN servers have been shut down. You may obtain preview builds by following the link to the PR below which also comes with instructions on how to use them.

Online/Matchmaking support PR (contains preview binaries & instructions): https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/pull/8663.

Video showing online multiplayer via RPCS3 & RPCN from which the article’s images are taken from!