Hundreds Of PS2 Prototypes And Demos Released Online Thanks To Preservationists

Video game preservation group Hidden Palace has released more than 700 demos, builds, and prototypes from the PlayStation 2 era in an ongoing effort that they're calling "Project Deluge." The lot itself is over 860 gigabytes of data. According to the project page, this massive release is but one part of a "gigantic lot" of unreleased and unseen gaming assets that "[spans] multiple console generations."

As the group details in the description, the lot itself had to be carefully curtailed to remove final retail builds, and the group created scripts to collect metadata on each build to categorize and evaluate each item. The group also states that the quality of the dumped files themselves "could be much better" and "could contain errors," but due to its sheer size, they were unable to redump all the files with proper hardware. However, Hidden Palace says that they may revisit the disks in the future. Overall, however, Project Deluge will be so large that Hidden Palace says it will "eclipse everything we've tackled up until this point."

Builds included in the lot include several E3 prototypes of notable games, including Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex and Shadow of the Colossus, as well as prototypes of God Hand and Dino Stalker. There are also accessible debug tools in many of the builds, including for classics like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It's a truly staggering amount of content, and it'll take hackers and game researchers months if not years to figure out everything that's in there.