You can’t beat a good fighting game, and the venerable PlayStation One can boast some all-time greats amongst its roster. Top of the pile are the Tekken games (particularly the masterpiece that is Tekken 3), but following not too far behind are Soul Edge, a heaping pile of Street Fighter titles, Rival Schools, curios like Warpath: Jurassic Park and the Bloody Roar games, and, the still awesome Bushido Blade franchise.

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The only fly in the ointment is that these are all a whole bunch of fun with friends, but convincing people to come round for an evening spent with quarter-century-old fighting action can be a tall order. Well, now you don’t have to. Popular PlayStation emulator Duckstation has just implemented “rollback netcode,” meaning PSOne games can now be played online with almost no latency.

The specifics of how rollback netcode works aren’t important (okay, fine, we admit we don’t understand exactly how this magic works), but the upshot is that it makes sure both players remain in perfect sync with one another online. The idea is that it predicts what you’re going to do next, prepares all possible outcomes and then shows the best one. If players’ input differs from what the code predicted, it’ll “rollback” to the right state seamlessly.

So yeah, basically it’s programming magic. The fighting game community regularly calls for all new releases to feature this, as even high-profile games like Street Fighter V have tripped themselves up with shoddy netcode.

Here’s how it’s going down online:

I'm happy to share that I had the privilege of testing out Rollback Netcode for DuckStation (PS1 Emulator)

Thanks to @heat_xd

Here's match footage of me playing Street Fighter EX2+

The connection was between 2 Toronto locations

I'll post more clips in this thread

— Mufausa (@MufausaThe3rd) March 13, 2023

Got the Duckstation PS1 rollback netcode beta up and running. It definitely plays and feels great so far.

Getting to play some rollback netcode Tekken 3 on the PC with other people is truly an amazing feeling I thought would never happen.

— RIZE | GriffyBones (@GriffyBones) March 13, 2023

A controversial take:

Wait hol up PS1 rollback means the return of the best SF game

— Jeppson's|Blaire(Banchito) (@El_Banchito) March 13, 2023

Bring it on:

Holy shit can't wait to eventually play PS1 fighters on rollback with @XenoMarcos such as the Bloody Roar series and most importantly ERGHEIZ GOD BLESS THE RING

— FatalBracerS🍁l @play KOFXV & SAMSHO & FFXIV (@FatalBracerSol) March 13, 2023

Here’s hoping this gives these dusty old games a new lease of life. Now, if you’ll excuse us we’re going to hop online and see if there’s anyone who wants a few rounds of Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi. … Hello? Is anyone out there?