Can you play PS4 games on PS5? PlayStation backwards compatibility explained

20.12.2023 - 11:43 / radiotimes.com

Backwards compatibility has been a staple of console gaming for generations.

However, it's not always the case, so today we'll be taking a look at whether you can play PS4 games on the PS5.

The PS3 put a bit of a spanner in the works, owing to its complex design making it very computationally difficult to emulate. Even beefy gaming computers struggle to do it! Sony has found a way around this, though.

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Fortunately, the PS4 and PS5 are architecturally very similar, which makes things a lot simpler for both Sony and developers, and allows for simple patches to update the game's visuals.

And really, that makes the PS5 worth it in our eye,s as not only do you get to play the best PS5 games, but you can also play some of the greatest titles to grace the 2013 console, too!

With the new PS5 Slim, if you can't stretch to the disc version now, you can always upgrade down the line, meaning you can pick up dirt cheap PS4 discs.

But that's quite enough from us, you have an entire back catalogue of PlayStation 4 games to get through!

Yes, you can play PS4 games on the PS5.

As we alluded to earlier, this is because the PS4 is constructed far more like a traditional PC would be, and doesn't include any fancy exotic components.

The PS5 has followed this path, and can be thought of as an upgraded gaming PC in that sense, as much of the software runs similarly – and often better, too!

This means that you can play almost all of your old favourites and pick up some cheap physical copies of secondhand PS4 titles, many of which have received PS5 patches to improve their frame rate and resolution.

However, there are a very small number of PS4 games that won't work, which we'll touch on later.

Read more on PlayStation:

You can play virtually every PS4 game on the PS5.

You can pretty much take your pick of a PS4 game to play on the PS5, with Sony confirming that the majority of games will be playable — 99 per cent of them, to put a figure to it.

Sony has been busy testing this out on a multitude of games to make sure that they all work — and the results have been positive. So, you should be able to play them all problem-free when your new console arrives.

As mentioned, thankfully there are not many PS4 games that don't work on PS5. But here is the list of the ones that will still require you to hang onto the PS4.

This list has shrunk by about three or four titles since the PS5 first launched, so there is still hope for those that remain.

We can only offer our deepest sympathies to those who were hoping to continue moonlight as a pop star in We Sing, but really, Just Deal with it!

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