Although PS4 games are backwards compatible with PS5, PS4 PSVR games won’t be playable on PSVR2 Sony has confirmed.
Speaking on the latest Official PlayStation Podcast, Hideaki Nishino, SVP of Platform Experience, said that PSVR games won’t be compatible with PSVR2 because “PSVR2 is designed to deliver a truly next-generation VR experience.” Nishino further stated that “developing games for PSVR2 requires a whole different approach than the original PSVR.”
PSVR games are not compatible with PSVR2 because PSVR2 is designed to deliver a truely next-generation VR experience. PSVR2 has much more advanced features like all new controller with haptic feedback and adaptive trigers, inside-out tracking, eye-tracking, 3D audio… Developing games for PSVR2 requires a whole different approach than the original PSVR.
Hideaki Nishino, SVP of Platform Experience
This news means that amazing PSVR games like Astro Bot Rescue Mission, The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners, Beat Saber and Blood & Truth will not be playable on Sony’s next-gen PSVR2 hardware. But they will still be playable on PS5 if you hook up the original PSVR to the console.
The announcement by a Sony exec that PSVR2 won’t be backwards compatible with PSVR games is probably bad news for some PSVR players. Many people were thinking that they could play their PS4 PSVR games on the new hardware, and many have been adding PS Plus PSVR games to their library for this very reason. But PSVR2’s inability to play PSVR games was inevitable as the technologies are completely different.
Developers are working on bringing their PSVR1 games to PSVR2
For players wanting to play their back catalogue of PSVR games on the new PlayStation VR2, there is some good news though. In a recent tweet by the PSVR YouTube channel PSVR2 Without Parole, which seems pretty clued up with all the PSVR2 happenings, tons of developers are already working on updates to bring their PSVR1 games to PSVR2.
We will though! Tons of devs are working on PSVR2 versions of their PSVR1 games as we speak! 😀
— PSVR2 Without Parole (@parolePSVR) September 16, 2022
So we might yet get to play the awesome PSVR1 games like Blood & Truth, Moss, Moss: Book 2, Beat Saber and more on the next-gen PSVR2 hardware.
We already know that No Man’s Sky is getting a PSVR2 version via a free update. So it makes sense that other devs will follow suit and port their PSVR1 games to the new headset. Whether the devs will provide a free update or we will be required to re-buy the game again remains to be seen.
