Hydroid runs Android games natively on jailbroken PS5s. EglantinePS5 is an experimental Switch 2 emulator for the same console. Both require PS5 firmware v13.60 or earlier — and no online access. No official release.
No support from Sony. Just open-source code, compiled ARM64 binaries, and a growing list of playable titles: Subway Surfers, Sonic Dash, Shadow Fight 2, Jetpack Joyride. Also, Pokémon Pokopia, but not reliably Mario Kart World or Splatoon Raiders. That’s the state of PS5 homebrew in early November 2026.
Not a product launch. Not a partnership. Not even a beta you sign up for. It’s a toolkit, built by ZiZc3 (Hydroid), heydemoura (EglantinePS5), and mucahidkambur (its v1 fork), now circulating among forums and GitHub repos.
And it works, if you’re willing to sacrifice PlayStation Network, system updates, and warranty coverage to run mobile and unreleased-console games on a $500 living-room device. The PS5 isn’t just playing Switch 2 games. It’s running them, with DualSense motion, rumble, and 4x resolution scaling, as long as you treat it like a Linux box with a GPU, not a locked-down entertainment appliance.
Android games don’t need emulation layers or VM overhead. Hydroid translates ARM64 instructions on-the-fly using dynarmic, hooks into PS5 graphics and audio APIs directly, and maps Touchpad swipes to on-screen buttons. Unity and Unreal Engine titles are confirmed working. So are APKs you sideload yourself.
Meanwhile, Playden and PC5 bring Steam and offline Windows games to the same machine, one syncing cloud saves, the other reading exFAT USB drives. None of this is plug-and-play. None of it ships with a manual. But for users searching ‘Switch 2 emulator’ or ‘Switch 2 games’ right now, the PS5, not a new Nintendo hardware, is the first place they’ll find something that almost runs them.
Firmware v13.60 remains the gate. And it’s closing. Sony has patched it out of all current system updates. If you haven’t downgraded or preserved it, you’re locked out.
No date for a v13.61 exploit. No roadmap for Hydroid beyond ‘more engines, more games’. Just code. And a console doing things its makers never intended.
HTFiled by The Home Tech Desk
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