Following recent updates for Destiny 2, Control, and the great Nioh games, PlayStation 5 owners are in a golden age of games across different generations. But if you’re not careful, you can most likely play the PlayStation 4 version of a cross-gen game on your PS5. The horror!
Microsoft’s latest consoles, the Xbox Series X and S, offer the next generation version of a game (if it exists, and if the developer did not put it down for a fee) via an automated process called ‘Smart Delivery’ ‘. It may sound like a non-characteristic feature – a term filled with commissions in a Seattle boardroom, but it’s actually very useful. You can reasonably say that Smart Delivery is one of the defining features of Microsoft’s two next generation consoles.
On PlayStation, however, the process does not happen automatically. It’s all too easy to download and upload the PlayStation 4 version of a game that has existed for generations (like Bugsnax, Control, or the newly renovated Nioh 2).
Pay particular attention to the text below the icon of a game on the main dashboard. If ‘PS4’ is next to the title, you have downloaded the PS4 version. If there’s an arrow next to ‘PS4’, it means you do not have downloaded the PS4 version, but could do so easily by tapping the “X” button too quickly. (Yes, you can have both the PS4 and PS5 versions of a game installed on your console.) If it does not say ‘PS4’ at all, it means you have downloaded the PS5 version. Good work.
To switch to the PS5 version of, say, Bugsnax, simply move over the icon of the game and press it. You will see a three-point menu. Click on it. Then select “PS5 | Vol | Bugsnax. After downloading, you should start well.
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The process is not always so smooth. Sometimes, with disc-based PS4 games, you may need to perform an extra set of steps. Last week, Sony an update released which allegedly solved an ongoing issue in which the PS5 would download the PS4 version of a game – even if a PS5 version existed. After the update, this should not happen again.
But what if it do?
Take Nioh 2 many of us, for example, have been playing since last week’s release The Nioh Collection aroused renewed interest in the series. Last November, Team Ninja announced a free upgrade for both games, which supports 4K resolution, frames up to 120 fps, and allows for the continuation of storage files. But if you have installed Nioh 2 on your PS5 via a disc before last week’s system update, you still do not get the PS5 version automatically. Here’s how to fix it:
- You must see Nioh 2 on the PS5 main dashboard on the Games page. (If there is no icon for it, go to your game library and start over Nioh 2. You only need to load it for a fraction of a second to create the icon on your dashboard.)
- Move over the icon and scroll down to the three-point menu on the game’s page.
- Click on it and then click on “View Product.”
- You will be taken to Nioh 2‘s page in the PlayStation Store. When you open the three-point menu, you must compile a list of all available versions of the game: Nioh 2 – PS4, The Nioh Collection, Nioh 2 Remastered (PS5 upgrade). Click on the last one.
- If you Nioh 2 disk is in disk, you will see an option to download the free upgrade.
PlayStation also brings an additional complication: a small series of last-generation games that received PS5 updates but did not receive dedicated PS5 versions. For example, since the release of the PS5, both Ghost of Tsushima and God of war has been updated for PS5. Both are now operating at a beautiful frame rate of 60 fps on PS5, but are still technically (extremely nice) PS4 games. The easiest way to see exactly which versions of a given game exist is to go to the PlayStation Store page for a game you are curious about. If you click on the three-point menu, you will see a list of all available versions. Only those with a PS5-specific version will show a PS5 version available for purchase.
The Xbox’s cleverly named Smart Delivery feature sounds quite nice at the moment, right?
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