Jak and Daxter, Naughty Dog’s pre-Uncharted mascot platformer on the PlayStation 2, may have been forgotten by Sony, but not by fans. Sure, you can play the original trilogy and the kart racing spin-off Jak X on your PlayStation 5 through backwards compatibility with the PS4 bundle, but it’s highly unlikely that we will see another game in the series any time soon. But a team of fans has been working hard to port the Jak games to PC, and a mod has added a brand new way to play it you won’t find on any PlayStation version on multiplayer.
The OpenGOAL team has been porting the Jak games to PC since 2020, and after launching the first two in 2022 and 2023, they’re nearly done with Jak 3. That’s cool on its own, but there’s also a mod called TeamRuns (thanks, GamesRadar) that lets you play the first game with a friend. This can be through either local or online multiplayer, and the mod tweaks the game to ensure it’s a seamless experience for everyone. This means cutscenes won’t interrupt other players if another person triggers one.
The mod description says Teamruns is primarily meant as a speedrunning tool. It includes an “in-game timer, splits, and automatic leaderboard submission and verification” to help people track their runs and compare them with others. I love the idea of a full co-op run for Jak and Daxter because everyone has the childhood fantasy of playing a single player game alongside their friend or sibling. I still wish I could play the old Sly Cooper games with me and other players controlling different characters for a heist. But that’s probably a pipe dream. For now, at least one PS2 platform mascot has co-op where they once didn’t.
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While Naughty Dog is probably not revisiting Jak and Daxter, the studio has confirmed it most likely has at least one more chapter in The Last of Us. The team has more than one project in the works right now, however, and studio boss Neil Druckmann says it “will not be ‘The Last of Us’ studio forever.”
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