You can’t download the original Shadow of the Colossus from PS2 for PS4, but you could by a polished port of the game on PS3 and will be able to get a full remake for PS4 in early 2018.

The PS4 seemingly can run a wide range of PS2 games, but Sony barely sells any. PS2 game discs don’t run in the system, but downloadable versions of some of these games do. If there is a hardware limitation keeping others from running, why not use streaming? Sony’s game-streaming service, PlayStation Now, lets paying subscribers access hundreds of PS4 and PS3 games but offers no games from the PS2 (or original PlayStation for that matter).

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While Sony hasn’t offered many of its PS2 games for download or streaming, it has at least shown interest in repackaging them, polishing them, and selling them in bundles that can be boxed and listed for close to full price. The cessation of PS2 backwards compatibility on newer PS3 models gave way to a raft of up-rezzed PS2 classics bundled and sold for closer to the full price of a modern game. With that approach, Sony sold PS3 owners a combo pack of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, a triple-pack of Ratchet & Clank games, and a pair of God of Wars. It’s not quite the same thing, but Sony’s next big release for the PS4 is February’s full-on remake of Shadow of the Colossus.

For a time PS4 owners might have found the existence of a “PS2 on PS4” section of the PlayStation Store might have been a reason for optimism. If Sony is going to have a whole corner of its store for PS2 games, surely they have a plan. The release of PS2 games on the console has slowed and the store remains comically buried 50 button presses deep. In fact, we interrupt this news article to bring you Kotaku’s most helpful walkthrough of 2017:

How To Reach The ‘PS2 On PS4’ Shop On The PS4

- Open the PSN store

- Press down on the d-pad 10 times

- Press right 36 times

- Press down three times

- Press X

Last week, some people did notice the weird change in Sony’s obscure “PS2 on PS4” sub-section of the PlayStation Store. Discovering the change, one user of the GameFAQs message board started a thread titled “The PS2 on PS4 games are gone!” Another user pointed out that it was “probably a store error.” After all, the games weren’t gone from the store, just from that not-very-convenient page.

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The person who started the thread wondered if they’d missed some news. For better or worse, they didn’t. There is no news about Sony’s PS4 support for PS2 games. The big news would be that Sony has gotten serious about selling its PS2 games to a modern audience. (And, for that matter, PlayStation 1 games.) That’s something that, four years into the lifespan of the PS4, complete with its backwards-compatible streaming service, we are still unable to report.

UPDATE - 12:04pm, December 19: Sony has changed, but not fully fixed the “PS2 on PS4" part of the PSN store. It now displays four (!) items and still fails to list any of the other PS2 games that are still for sale for PS4 via the store:

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UPDATE - 4:49pm, December 20: Our national nightmare is over. Listings restored. Still just 50+ games, though...

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