PlayStation Explains How to Upgrade PS4 Games to PS5

PlayStation finally shared some important details this week on the PlayStation 5's backwards compatibility feature and how it'll work with the PlayStation 4 games people have collected. While the majority of PlayStation 4 games will play seamlessly on the PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility, there are some that will be able to be upgraded to the PlayStation 5 version to take advantage of more next-gen features like better framerates and more. To offer some clarity on that upgrade process, PlayStation also explained the steps users will need to take to upgrade their PlayStation 4 games to the PlayStation 5 versions.

The good news is that that upgrades will be made available if you own a game regardless of if it's on a disc or is a digital copy. Discs of course won't do you much good if you're getting the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition though, so you'll have to watch out for that if you haven't picked out your console yet.

In a support article separate from the one talking about backwards compatibility, PlayStation broke down the process of upgrading games. The steps for upgrading a game with a disc can be found below.

Upgrading PS4 Games to PS5 Using a Disc

1. Sign in to your existing account on your PS5 console (or create an account).
2. Insert the eligible PS4 game disc.
3. Go to the game hub for the PS4 game.
4. Select the upgrade offer on the game hub and review the upgrade offer.
5. Select Download (or purchase with the discount price) to download/purchase content.
6. After the download is complete, you can play the PS5 digital game by inserting the PS4 game disc. You will need to keep the disc inserted each time to play the game.

For people who prefer their collections of games to be digital, the upgrade process is a similar one minus the disc. The steps for upgrading digital games can be found below.

Upgrading PS4 Games to PS5 Using Digital Games

1. Sign in to your existing account on your PS5 console.
2. Find the PS5 game in PlayStation Store, or by Search, and go to the game hub for the PS5 game.
3. Select the upgrade offer on the game hub and review the upgrade offer.
4. Select Download (or purchase with the discount price) to download/purchase content.
5. After the download is complete, you can play the PS5 game.

Each process will require a download for the individual games which means it won't be as quick as transferring everything over from one console to the next, but it's still a simple process.

PlayStation also named a few PlayStation 4 games that won't be playable on the PlayStation 5 at all, so don't expect to be playing those on the next-gen console.