PS4 Box Art Reveals First Look at PS5 Upgrade Branding

Box art for Ubisoft's Immortals Fenyx Rising was revealed recently to preview the mythological adventure players will embark on when the game releases, but the box art also gave us a first look at some branding that shows when a game will receive an upgrade from the PlayStation 4 to the PlayStation 5 version. The badge signifying that buyers will get an upgrade if they buy the next-gen PlayStation console will apparently be located towards the bottom of the box and will simply say "PS5 Upgrade Available."

The box art for the game can be seen below with the badge shown at the bottom of it. It's a simple, non-intrusive label next to the age rating for the game that doesn't take up much space at all on the box art, so even if it's one more thing to add to the box, it shouldn't distract too much from the artwork itself. We've already seen people get vocal about not liking a certain type of next-gen box art, though it doesn't seem likely we'll see that happen with this PlayStation 4 branding.

Though Microsoft was the first to offer these sorts of upgrades to the next-gen consoles through its unified Smart Delivery system, the method of updating people to the next-gen versions only applied to first-party releases like Halo Infinite. That meant it was up to third-party developers in every other instance to decide if they wanted to offer a free upgrade to the next-gen versions of the game or not, but thankfully for those who are planning on getting the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One versions first before getting a new console, many have opted into the plan and are offering free upgrades regardless.

How companies plan to go about offering their free upgrades to the new versions of the game differ depending on who you're looking at. Some publishers like Ubisoft are just offering the upgrades to the next-gen versions of the game with no strings attached. Others like Activision are offering upgrades for games like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, but the upgrade-included version costs $70 instead of $70 since the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game will cost $10 more when they release later this year. Control publisher 505 Games offered an explanation of sorts for why upgrades wouldn't be available unless you purchased the Ultimate Edition, but that explanation hasn't sat well with fans.

Sony has not yet committed to an upgrade system like Smart Delivery for all of its first-party games. A PlayStation 5 event is scheduled for next week, so perhaps we'll see some more on these plans then.

Thanks, VGC.