The Jak Project is a decompilation and recompilation effort that revives GOAL, the custom Lisp dialect created by Naughty Dog for the original Jak and Daxter trilogy on PlayStation 2.
The project addresses the challenge of preserving and modernizing games written in a proprietary language by decompiling the original machine code back into human-readable GOAL source code, then developing a compiler to retarget that code for x86-64 architecture. This approach allows the games to run on PC while maintaining the original gameplay and logic. The effort covers over 98 percent of the original game code, with supporting tools to extract and repack game assets into formats compatible with the new port.
Adoption makes sense for developers interested in reverse engineering, game preservation, or understanding how a major studio implemented a custom language for console development. The project requires a legally obtained copy of an original PS2 release to extract assets, and it supports all retail PAL, NTSC, and NTSC-J builds. The work is specifically focused on the original trilogy and does not support later console releases. Those seeking to contribute or modify the games will find comprehensive documentation and a development environment setup guide, though the repository is primarily oriented toward development rather than end-user installation.
The project maintains active development with continuous integration testing across Linux and Windows platforms. Community engagement occurs through a dedicated Discord server where contributors and users discuss progress and troubleshoot issues. Documentation is regularly updated to reflect the current state of the decompilation and compilation efforts.
