28 years after the original release of WipEout on Windows computers, fans of the Antigrav racer have banded together to create an unofficial remastered port for PC, called WipEout Phantom Edition.
This enhanced port of the game from the WipEout Phantom Edition team introduces many incredible quality-of-life features, including uncapping the frame rate, expanding the view distance, and reducing pop-in, in addition to letting you choose your preferred input method and updating the sound system to allow 3D audio sources. There are also a few changes featured within, which are designed to help it maintain its iconic PS1-style aesthetic while undergoing a modern, high-definition makeover.
Already, people have taken to Twitter to express their approval of the modern PC port, posting videos of their play sessions online to show off this latest release. You can see a couple of examples of these types of posts below.
Here is the full list of changes, meanwhile, which is also available to view on the project's GitHub page:
- Uncapped frame rate: Render frame rate is decoupled from game state simulation using interpolation.
- High-resolution rendering: Matches your desktop resolution by default.
- Distant geometry fade: Objects fade into view smoothly, eliminating pop-ins.
- Ship lighting: Ships inherit coloration from track lighting data, similar to WipeOut 2 and 3.
- Increased view distance: See further into the distance.
- Configurable aspect ratio and widescreen support: Adjust screen settings to suit your monitor.
- Optional lo-fi resolution mode: Switch to 320x240 graphics mode.
- Maintained PSX-accurate rasterization and blending: Retains authentic PlayStation look by only using blending features available on original hardware, while also providing high-resolution smooth graphics.
- Keyboard and gamepad input support: Choose your preferred control input method.
- Wall collision response options:
- Modern: Comparable to BallisticNG.
- Classic: Comparable to WipeOut 2.
- Legacy: 🪦
- Wall scrape particle effects and audio: Visual and audio enhancement in Modern and Classic wall collision modes.
- New music and sound effect system: Similar to the PlayStation version.
- 3D audio for sound effects: Spatial audio sources and doppler effect.
- Additional options menus: Configure most of the new features.
- Keyboard and gamepad control configuration: Customize your controls to your preference.
- New config file system: Game configuration data and progress is stored in editable text files.
- Automatic game data extraction: The game can automatically extract game data files from provided bin/cue disk image files.
You can download the latest version of the source port from GitHub now. Bear in mind, though, you'll need to provide the game data files from the original PlayStation USA-region version of WipEout. Further instructions on how to get started can be found on the GitHub page under the 'Set Up' section.