PC gamers can finally play a beloved 2010 PS3 masterpiece

It’s an excellent time to be a God of War fan. A few months ago, developers announced God of War Laufey, the next title in the award-winning series. Back in February, Sony made two massive announcements: the release of Sons of Sparta, a 2D prequel to God of War, and the reveal that the original God of War trilogy was getting a remake.

Longtime fans welcomed the news, eager to see the legendary trilogy rebuilt from the ground up for the PS5. But newer fans, particularly those who got into the series through the official PC releases of God of War (2018) and God of War Ragnarok, may still feel left behind. While those newer Norse-era titles have official Steam releases, Sony has yet to bring the original Greek mythology-focused trilogy to PC audiences. It’s no surprise, then, that fans have taken matters into their own hands.

Earlier this month, developer Felipe Prado announced his unofficial port of God of War 3 Remastered was playable. That means fans can now enjoy Kratos’ revenge quest natively on Windows PC. The project supports keyboard controls, mouse controls, increased frame rates, and mods. Prado reports an average of 144 FPS at 1080p and 108 FPS at 4K (on an AMD RX 6700 XT graphics card).

God of War 3 launched on the PS3 in 2010 and was ported to the PS4 five years later. It follows Kratos, the former god of war, as he embarks on a brutal quest for revenge against the gods of Olympus.

The open-source port doesn’t actually distribute God of War 3 itself — players will need their own copy of the PS4 files to use it. But it’s not emulation: it translates PS4 instructions so your PC’s CPU can run them. Technically, the port is still in alpha, which means players should expect some graphical issues and bugs. But getting God of War 3 to run natively on PC is a remarkable feat, and it makes the game available to tons of players who otherwise would never experience it.

The port also comes after Sony started pulling back from creating PC ports of its first-party single-player games. Unless something changes, it looks like fan projects like this are the only way PC gamers will get access to some of the PlayStation’s most celebrated titles.