According to a report originally published by Eurogamer, recently released developer documentation has revealed that all-new PlayStation 4 games submitted for certification after July 13 will also need to be fully functional on the upcoming PlayStation 5. The document further elucidates what is meant by a title being PS5 “compatible”, reiterating that a game deemed compatible with the PlayStation 5 must run without any issues on the new console and must provide the same features on the PS5 as it does on the PS4. This requirement will make sure that game developers can’t simply flag their game as compatible and then ship a PlayStation 5 version of their game without support for certain features or modes that operate on the PlayStation 4.
It’s worth noting that these requirements won’t apply to games that have an established release date after July 13, such as Ghost of Tsushima, only to games that are yet to be certified for sale by Sony. That said, Sony has already made it clear that they strongly recommend that developers consider PS5 compatibility when implementing any new patches or remasters of games submitted before the cut-off date.
With this in mind, we expect Ghost of Tsushima launching on July 17 and The Last of Us Part II launching on July 19 to both be forward compatible with the PS5 by the time the new console is released, hopefully later this year.
It seems like backward compatibility is going to be a huge feature in the upcoming generation of consoles with both Microsoft and Sony making impressive efforts to preserve their back catalogs. According to Mark Cerny, a leading system architect at Sony, the company has already tested hundreds of PlayStation 4’s most loved titles and has no intention of slowing down any time soon, leading up to the launch of the PS5.
