PS5 jailbreaking AI speeds up hacks that run PS2 and PS3 games

Jailbreaking means breaking the security that stops a console from running software Sony hasn’t approved. Once a PS5 is jailbroken, it can run homebrew apps and emulators, and, the part Sony worries about most, pirated games.

The process has always been slow. Finding a weak point means reading deep into a console’s firmware, the low-level software that runs the hardware. Then a jailbreak comes out, Sony patches it, and hackers start over. That cycle is now spinning much faster.

Nobody has confirmed that AI wrote any specific PS5 exploit, including the newest ones. But the timing fits a wider boom in AI-assisted reverse engineering. AI coding agents are well suited to this kind of work because they can write code, test it, check the result and try again, over and over, without getting tired.

The biggest recent jailbreak is Relapse, an exploit chain published in late September by developer Nathan Fargo. It worked on PS5 firmware 7.00 through 13.60. The previous public jailbreak stopped at 12.70, so Relapse opened up a large share of consoles in people’s homes. Any PS5 not updated to firmware 14.00, released September 16, could be affected.

The app that got gamers talking is PS5SX2, which lets jailbroken PS5s run PlayStation 2 games. That is a sore point for many players, since Sony stopped building backward compatibility into its consoles with the PS4 in 2013. The first version was buggy, but a 2.00 update arrived within about two weeks, adding frame generation and support for games on more than one disc. Other posts in the community claim PS3 games can now run on hacked PS5s too, though that has not been widely shown.

I put Minecraft inside GTA V. On an iPhone. Yes, you can ride the Ender Dragon. pic.twitter.com/8sltNgV7g6

— 0xProbability (@0xProbabillity) October 11, 2026

The search for exploits sits next to a bigger trend: decompilation. Games ship as compiled code that machines can run but people can’t easily read. Decompiling works backward from that code to rebuild readable source code that produces the same game. Fans used it to create unofficial PC versions of games like Super Mario 64, work that usually took volunteer teams years.

AI has shrunk that timeline. In just a few weeks, hundreds of AI-decompiled games and emulators have appeared online, many crediting Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 model. They include browser versions of Halo: Combat Evolved, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Skate 3, plus wild mashups such as Skate’s skateboarding dropped into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Not everyone is cheering. The teams behind the fan projects Zelda: Recompiled and Banjo: Recompiled have rejected AI and called AI-made copies of their work disrespectful. Critics also say many AI ports come from people with little programming experience, leaving a trail of buggy, broken releases.

Sony’s answer is to patch fast. Firmware 14.10 closed the hole Relapse used, which had reportedly worked on every PS5 firmware released up to then. Within weeks, a South Korean developer known as Gezine posted a clip on X claiming a kernel-level exploit on 14.10, showing a hidden debug menu that normally needs the deepest level of system access.

Gezine also said the old method of copying game data no longer seems to work on 14.10, and that a new exploit targeting the PS5’s hypervisor, an extra security layer that sits beneath the operating system, would be needed to fully jailbreak an updated console.

Days later, on Wednesday, Sony released firmware 14.20, a 1.2 GB download. Its patch note only mentions improved messages and usability on some screens, but people in the hacking scene believe it is aimed at slowing their progress.

Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives on November 19 and will not be sold on disc. Firmware 14.10 is reportedly required to play it, so hackers are racing to break the latest firmware before launch, while Sony keeps moving the target.

There is also anger fueling the scene. Sony has said it will stop making physical game discs from 2028, and it is arguing in court that buyers don’t legally own the digital games they purchase. That has led some online to argue that piracy isn’t stealing, a view Sony obviously rejects. Sony can also require the latest firmware to download game updates, which pushes most players onto patched software anyway.

For almost everyone, the safest move is to leave your console alone and keep it updated. Jailbreaking a PS5 can brick it, cut you off from online play and purchases, and void your warranty. In the US, getting around a console’s copy protection can break the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Phones and smart TVs have won exemptions in the reviews held every three years by the Librarian of Congress, but game consoles have not.

There is a money angle too. A secondhand PS5 Pro can cost $1,300 or more during the current memory shortage, so wrecking one with a failed hack would be an expensive mistake. If you want to play older PlayStation games, official re-releases and remasters are the risk-free route.