{"id":513369,"date":"2026-06-27T07:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T07:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/513369\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T07:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T07:04:10","slug":"the-ps4-emulator-shadps4-now-lets-you-play-ps4-games-online-without-using-psn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/513369\/","title":{"rendered":"The PS4 emulator ShadPS4 now lets you play PS4 games online without using PSN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" alt=\"PS4 Remote Play\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/PS4-Remote-Play.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/PS4-Remote-Play.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                    Summary<\/p>\n<p>                                        ShadPS4 launches ShadNet to emulate PSN, letting emulated PS4 games play online without a PSN account.<\/p>\n<p>                                        ShadNet uses RPCN custom servers to mimic Sony&#8217;s backend so PS4 games can &#8220;talk&#8221; to online services.<\/p>\n<p>                                        ShadNet is in testing: only score tracking works currently, a site account is required, and netplay is incomplete.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve never written a console emulator before, but I can imagine getting the netplay working is one of the harder parts. Games usually ship with special netcode designed to only speak with a specific server, and part of the emulation process involves emulating that system so that people can play online.<\/p>\n<p>Not all consoles or games have had their netplay emulated just yet, but we&#8217;ve just seen a massive breakthrough on the PS4 front. The ShadPS4 emulator team has revealed the release of ShadNet, which replaces the need for Sony&#8217;s official PlayStation Network service and allows people to play games online without an account.<\/p>\n<p>                        ShadNet brings netplay to ShadPS4 without any of the PSN requirements<\/p>\n<p>            You can soon play your emulated PS4 titles online<\/p>\n<p>        <img width=\"1650\" height=\"1100\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"playstation 4 soccer match\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/pexels-kowalievska-1174746.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/pexels-kowalievska-1174746.jpg\" class=\"img-brightness-opt-out\"\/><br \/>\n        Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/photo\/person-holding-game-pad-1174746\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Pexels<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As spotted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.notebookcheck.net\/PS4-emulator-ShadPS4-adds-online-multiplayer-allowing-players-to-bypass-PSN.1329843.0.html\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Notebook Check<\/a>, the ShadPS4 team has announced ShadNet on its <a href=\"https:\/\/shadps4.net\/blog\/progress-on-shadnet\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">website<\/a>. The goal of ShadNet is to allow people to activate online features for PS4 games without the need to have a PSN account:<\/p>\n<p>We are excited to officially announce shadNet. ShadNet is going to offer shadPS4 users a way to connect, and play online games together. This project has been in the works for a few months now, but its in a stage where we can announce it officially. ShadNet is still in development, and there is still a lot to be done, but its ready for testing. At this moment, only tracking score works, but please feel free to give it a try!<\/p>\n<p>To achieve this, the ShadPS4 team used RPCN, a custom server that people already use to play PS3 games online over an emulator. By creating a custom server, ShadNet acts as a stand-in for Sony&#8217;s own servers, meaning that PS4 games with online capabilities can &#8216;talk&#8217; to it like it would a regular server. Using ShadNet does require making an account on the website, and the implementation of netplay isn&#8217;t fully done yet, but the dev team hopes to get it working soon.<\/p>\n<p>                                                                                                                            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.xda-developers.com\/greatest-pc-exclusive-games-that-made-me-switch-from-playstation-to-pc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                        <img width=\"440\" height=\"248\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A tri-image collage of PC-exclusive games.\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/pc-only-gems-that-made-me-move-from-playstation-to-pc.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/pc-only-gems-that-made-me-move-from-playstation-to-pc.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    Related<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.xda-developers.com\/greatest-pc-exclusive-games-that-made-me-switch-from-playstation-to-pc\/\" title=\"9 PC-only games that made me move from PlayStation to PC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t9 PC-only games that made me move from PlayStation to PC<br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"display-card-excerpt\">I played on a PS4 for the longest time, but these PC-only gems in my wishlist ultimately made me move back to a gaming desktop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary ShadPS4 launches ShadNet to emulate PSN, letting emulated PS4 games play online without a PSN account. ShadNet&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[85,46,125],"class_list":["post-513369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}