The Recomp Scene Got App Stores. Here Is What Is Actually in the Catalogs

2026-10-26 · Explainer

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For about three years, playing a native port of an old console game meant doing the legwork yourself. Find the project, work out which download is for your machine, supply your own copy of the game, put the files in the right folder, and repeat for the next one.

That phase is ending. There are now launchers that install and update these ports the way Steam installs games, a full app store for jailbroken PS5 consoles pushing releases almost daily, and a hand reviewed catalog tracking over a thousand projects.

The useful part is not that the launchers exist. It is that their catalogs are public, so for the first time you can count what the scene actually contains. The numbers are more interesting than the launchers.

The Short Version

• Four different things are getting lumped together. A cross platform launcher, a PS5 app store, a renamed general purpose launcher, and a catalog that is not a launcher at all.
• Ports Launcher carries 492 entries and runs on Windows, Linux and Android.
• RecompStore is PS5 only and shipped four versions in four days.
• PlayStation 1 is a third of the whole catalog. 158 of 492 entries, against 66 for N64.
• Only 42 of those 492 entries are tagged as polished by the catalog's own maintainers.
• One porter accounts for 104 entries. Over a fifth of the library rests on one person.
• None of them ship game files. You supply your own copy, every time. That is why they can exist.
• Checking whether these are maintained the normal way gives you the wrong answer. See below.

Four Projects, Four Different Jobs

This is the part the coverage runs together, and the distinction matters because only two of these are things you install to play games.

That third one is probably the project you half remember. It started life as a launcher for N64 recompilations specifically, which is what made it the first of its kind. It has since been renamed and turned into a general purpose launcher for project releases, which is a neat illustration of where the scene went. The problem stopped being "N64 ports are hard to find" and became "there are too many of these to track by hand."

Recompendium is worth knowing about even if you never install a launcher. Its current count is 1,030 projects across 37 platforms, broken into 452 recompilations, 350 ports, 156 decompilations, 43 tools and 29 mods. Entries are reviewed by hand and updated daily. If you want to know whether a given game has a native port, that is where to look.

What the Catalog Tags Reveal

Ports Launcher's catalog is a public file, so its contents can be counted rather than guessed at. Three findings stand out, and none of them appeared in any of the coverage.

PlayStation 1 Is Now the Centre of Gravity

PS1 is roughly a third of the entire catalog, and more than twice the N64 count. That is a real shift. The scene's public identity is still built around N64, because that is where the breakthrough tooling landed and where the famous ports came from. The actual output moved to PS1 static recompilation and nobody wrote it down.

If you have read about this topic before and came away thinking it was mostly an N64 story, that was true two years ago.

Most of It Is Not Polished, and the Catalog Says So

The catalog has a quality tag, applied by its maintainers to ports considered especially well put together. 42 of 492 entries carry it. Under 9%.

That is not a criticism of the launcher. It is the most useful thing in it. A 492 game library sounds like a replacement for an emulator, and it is not. A few dozen of these are genuinely finished pieces of work. The rest range from solid to someone's weekend experiment that boots. Having the maintainers mark the difference is worth more than the raw count.

There is also a free tag for games that are legally free, either open source or freeware, and an online tag for the handful with working multiplayer. Those are the two filters worth learning first.

One Person Is a Fifth of the Catalog

The catalog tags entries by porter, and one porter's tag appears on 104 of the 492 entries. Over a fifth of everything in there is one person's output.

That is worth saying out loud, kindly. It is a remarkable amount of work. It is also a concentration risk that a catalog page hides by design, because 492 entries in a grid look like 492 independent efforts. If that one person stops, or has an account problem, the library loses a fifth of its contents and a lot of its update flow.

The Maintenance Trap

Here is a practical thing that will mislead you, and it is the kind of detail these articles never include.

The normal way to check whether a project is alive is to look at its most recent release. Ports Launcher has exactly one release. Its tag reads like a date, 10/23/26. Its publish date is in August. Its creation date is in October.

Those three facts cannot all describe the same event, and none of them tells you the truth, which is that the project was updated today. It uses a single rolling release whose files are replaced in place, so the release metadata is frozen while the actual software moves.

So: do not judge these projects by their release date. Check when the code was last touched instead. We hit the reverse of this problem a few weeks ago, where the popular project in a scene turned out to be the archived one, which we wrote up in how to check a viral mod. Same lesson from the other direction.

Ports Launcher in Practice

This is the one most readers can actually use, because it runs on hardware people own.

Platforms: Windows, Linux and Android. It is written in Rust, ships as a portable executable with no separate install, and bundles its own extraction tool. It needs a working OpenGL driver for its interface, which is the detail that matters on cheap hardware. More on that below.

What it does well:

• One click install that picks the correct download for your processor architecture automatically. This removes the single most common point of failure.
• Auto updates per port, which you can switch off individually, plus a version picker if you want an older build.
• A proper info panel per port with the setup instructions, the installed version, and shortcuts to the install and save folders.
• Save backup for every installed port into one dated archive.
• A fullscreen library mode that works like Steam's Big Picture, with full controller navigation throughout.
• Playtime tracking per port.

What you still have to do: supply your own copy of each game. The launcher installs the port code, which is the open source part. The game data is yours.

The Android Build Is the Interesting One

For a handheld audience this is the part that matters. Ports Launcher has an Android build, which means it runs on Retroid, AYN and Anbernic Android devices rather than only on a PC.

Two honest caveats. First, the interface needs a working OpenGL driver, and driver quality is exactly what cheap Android handhelds are unreliable about. Second, 16 catalog entries are tagged android_only, which tells you the catalog is aware of the platform split, but most entries were built with desktop hardware in mind.

If you want the route that is actually built for handhelds, that is still PortMaster, which we cover in the PortMaster guide and in native ports on handhelds. PortMaster's device lists are specific, tested and per device. A general purpose launcher cannot give you that.

RecompStore, and Why the PS5 Suddenly Has a Store

RecompStore is a different proposition. It runs on the console, not on a PC, and it is the clearest sign yet of how much has landed on jailbroken PS5 consoles this year.

It has four tabs: Games, Emulators, Apps and Tools. It installs and updates each one from the project's own releases, and it keeps your game files, saves, DLC and mods in place when a port updates. It will not overwrite another app, it can install to internal storage or an M.2 drive or a USB drive, and you can add your own sources, which it marks as unchecked so you know the difference.

The clever part is the setup step. Most of these ports need you to supply the original game, and getting a disc image into the right folder on a console is the fiddly bit. RecompStore asks for your file, puts it where the port expects it, and does the copy at the drive's full speed. You can also scan a code to send installs to the console from your phone.

Its catalog includes ports of SmackDown vs Raw, FIFA Street, Sonic Unleashed, DOOM, OpenRCT2 and SuperTuxKart, alongside emulators. It is built on the same developer's Dolphin port for the PS5, which in turn sits on a PS5 RetroArch port and the console's community Vulkan driver.

The pace is the headline. It went from version 2.6.0 to 2.7.3 in four days. That is either a very healthy project or a very young one, and at two weeks old it is both.

What it needs: a jailbroken PS5 with the usual payload set loaded after every boot, including the kernel helper, an ELF loader on a specific port, and the tool that puts homebrew on the home screen. That is the same dependency chain as every other PS5 homebrew project right now. We go through it in more detail in the jailbroken PS5 piece and in the Steam library on PS5 piece.

We do not cover console jailbreaking and we do not link to payloads or game files.

The Thing Worth Worrying About

Aggregation changes the legal shape of this scene, and it is worth naming.

492 separate projects scattered across the internet are 492 separate problems for anyone who wants them gone. One launcher with a published catalog file is a single list. A store with a website, an admin panel and a catalog endpoint is a single target with an address.

This is not hypothetical. We documented projects being quietly removed from community trackers earlier this year in the recomp scene's AI split, and the takedown pressure on this corner of emulation has been steady all year.

Both of the launchers handle the legal question the same way, and it is the right way: they ship no game files at all. They install only the port code, which is open source and published by the project that wrote it. Every entry that needs original game data makes you supply it from your own copy. Ports Launcher states this in a notice at the very top of its documentation. RecompStore says it in bold on its first screen.

That distinction is the whole reason these can exist, and it is the reason we are comfortable writing about them. It also means a catalog of 492 entries is not a catalog of 492 games you can play. It is a catalog of 492 games you can play if you own them.

Which Should You Use?

• On a PC, for the widest catalog: Ports Launcher. 492 entries, automatic architecture detection, and a controller friendly interface.
• To find out whether a specific game has a port at all: Recompendium. It is an index, not an installer, and it is the most complete one.
• On an Android handheld: try Ports Launcher's Android build, but expect PortMaster to be the better answer for cheap hardware, because its device compatibility data is actually tested.
• On a jailbroken PS5: RecompStore, which has no competition.
• On a Steam Deck: Ports Launcher's Linux build works, and most of the well regarded ports publish Linux builds anyway.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a recomp launcher?

An app that installs, launches and updates unofficial native ports of console games, the way a game store does. Instead of finding each project yourself and working out which download fits your machine, you browse a catalog and click install. The launcher ships no game files, so you still supply your own copy of each game.

How many native game ports exist?

Depends what you count. Ports Launcher's catalog has 492 entries. Recompendium, which indexes the wider scene including tools and decompilations, lists 1,030 projects across 37 platforms, of which 452 are recompilations and 350 are ports.

Which console has the most native PC ports?

PlayStation 1, by a wide margin. It accounts for 158 of the 492 entries in Ports Launcher's catalog, against 66 for Nintendo 64 and 55 for Xbox 360. The scene's reputation is built on N64, but the output moved to PS1.

Are recomp launchers legal?

The launchers themselves ship no copyrighted game data, which is the point. They install open source port code published by each project, and anything that needs original game files makes you supply them from your own copy. That is the same position PortMaster has held for years.

Do I need the original game?

For almost every entry, yes. The port is the code that runs the game, not the game. A minority of entries are tagged as legally free, meaning open source or freeware, and those need nothing.

Can I use a recomp launcher on an Android handheld?

Ports Launcher has an Android build, so yes in principle. Two caveats: its interface needs a working OpenGL driver, which cheap Android handhelds are inconsistent about, and most catalog entries were built with desktop hardware in mind. For budget handhelds, PortMaster remains the better route because its compatibility data is tested per device.

What is RecompStore?

An app store that runs on a jailbroken PS5 and installs native ports, emulators, apps and tools to the console. It also handles the awkward step of getting your own disc image into the folder each port expects. It needs a jailbroken console with a specific set of payloads loaded.

How do I tell if a port is any good?

Use the catalog's own quality tag, which its maintainers apply to ports they consider especially polished. Only 42 of 492 entries have it, which is the most honest signal in the whole catalog.

Was N64RecompLauncher renamed?

Yes. It was the first standalone universal launcher for these ports, arriving in August 2025, and it has since been renamed and turned into a general purpose launcher for project releases rather than an N64 specific one.

Related Reading

• Recompiled Games List: Every Native Port So Far
• Native Ports on Handhelds: What PortMaster Actually Runs
• PortMaster Guide: Native Ports on Your Handheld
• Recompiled Games on Android
• The Recomp Scene Split Three Ways Over AI
• Decompilation and Recompilation Explained
• A Jailbroken PS5 Now Runs Your Steam Library

Written 26 October 2026. Catalog counts, tag distributions, platform breakdowns, release dates and download figures come from the projects' own catalog and documentation files plus the GitHub API, retrieved that day. Recompendium's totals come from its own front page the same day. All of these counts move weekly. We do not cover console jailbreaking and we do not link to payloads, keys or game files.