Sony announces an important update for PS5 owners regarding backward compatibility. Just so you know, it is very big: Sony engineers have strived to have a remarkable score of 4,000 and beyond in PS4 games running on the PS5. With that, back compatibility is not limited to a handful of titles but extends to almost the entire PS4 library. Any digital games you have and your save files: no, they will not stay behind. So, please do not start from scratch!
The PlayStation official FAQ delineates it in an elaborate manner; the huge upside is that most titles-whether they are disk or digital from PS4-should probably work on the PS5. So, if you were grinding away with Ghost of Tsushima or Spider-Man, your progress will not be left behind, either by uploading it to the cloud (if you have PlayStation Plus) or by copying it to a USB drive.
The downside—Not every single PS4 game will run perfectly smooth. Some minor issues here and there, but Sony has been very good in optimizing most of them. And the fact that this much back-compatibility is being offered in the first place rather should be celebrated. Remember the ugly transition of PS3 to PS4? Yeah…
And wait, there’s more: On PS5, some PS4 titles are given a game-boosted performance improvement, making frame rates smoother and quickening load times. So, if you have been awaiting to go through your favorite games again, then now is the winning moment.
Some exceptions. The small number of PS4 titles simply will not work on PS5; those are kept on a list by Sony; this is updated regularly on their support page. So real talk-would really be about ten games out of 4,000? Practically trophies in the book for Sony.
What, then, does this mean to the gamer? Well, if you’ve been freaking out on the fence about upgrading to a PS5, then well, this is probably the best point to take as an argument for it. You’re not losing your old library, and some even might play better than before.
And, of course, if you’re the sort of person with a pile of PS4 discs lying around somewhere, guess what? That PS5 disc Edition is for you. Just pop them in and away you go; nothing extra to pay for; no weird hoops to jump through.
Bottom line? Sony has made the transition to the PS5 stupidly easy without abandoning your PS4 games. And, in an era when companies love to put everything behind paywalls or simply just abandon the old libraries, it’s kind of a breath of fresh air.
If only they’d bring back PS1 and PS2 backward compatibility… Then again, hey, hey, we’ll take what we can get. Till then, game on, with high frame rates and low load times.
