The PS5 might not have a free PS4 to PS5 upgrade program like Xbox Smart Delivery. Instead, Sony is leaving this up to third-party publishers to decide if they want to offer a free upgrade.
Square Enix is one of those publishers that are happy to offer a free upgrade to the PS5 version.
In a post over on the PlayStation Blog, the Chief Technology Officer for Crystal Dynamics, developer of Marvel’s Avengers, has announced that we can get the PS5 version of the game for free. If we buy the PS4 version.
The game, published by Square Exin, will also feature many improvements on the PS5 version, as the CTO for Crystal Dynamics explains.
“PS5 greatly lifts the performance and graphics bar for consoles. The new GPU allows us to increase our texture resolution, push a higher level of detail farther from the player, enhance our ambient occlusion, improve our anisotropic filtering and add a variety of new graphics features such as stochastic screen-space reflections with contact-aware sharpening.”
I don’t know what half of these technical words mean, but they sound pretty fancy. Sounds like the PlayStation 5 version of Marvel’s Avengers will be pretty flashy. The Crystal Dynamics CTO goes on to explain that the PS5 version of the game will have an enhanced graphics mode and will target 60 frames-per-second and dynamic 4K resolution.
“Marvels Avengers PS5 loading will be nearly instant”
Marvel’s Avengers PS5 will also take advantage of the PS5’s lightning-fast SSD. The CTO explains that even without optimisations, the PS5 SSD improved load times by an order of magnitude. When optimisations are complete, loading will be near-instantaneous.
Good news if you are buying a PS5 at launch. Not only do you get a free Marvel’s Avengers upgrade if you buy the PS4 version, but you’ll also get massive technical improvements on the PS5.
The blog post doesn’t explain exactly how the free upgrade will work. Only that if you buy Marvel’s Avengers on PS4, either digitally or on disc, and then upgrade to PS5. You’ll get the PS5 version fo the game free of charge.
I t will be interesting to see how the free upgrade works in practice, especially if you buy the boxed disc version of the game on PS4. Do you send Sony or Square Enix a copy of your receipt and they then send you a code for the digital PS5 version? Or do they send you out a physical PS5 version? I’ve sent a tweet to PlayStation, Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics to see if they can explain in more detail how the upgrade process will work.
In addition to some fancy technical improvements for Marvel’s Avengers PS5, the game will also have a cross-generation play. You will still be able to play with your PS4 friends even if you upgrade to the PS5 version.
Hopefully, more publishers will be on board with offering free upgrades from the PS4 version fo their game to the PS5 version.
Marvel’s Avengers is set to release on September 4th, 2020.
