God of War on PS5 is backwards compatibility done right

(Epitome credit: Santa Monica Studio)

Compared to the Xbox Series Ten, backwards compatibility on the PS5 has been only OK and so far. Some games, like Ghost of Tsushima, take benefitted from the ten.28 teraflops of processing power in Sony'south bulky panel. Others, similar Bloodborne, simply load fast, but don't put the graphics grunt to expert use.

Just patches that optimize some of the best PS4 games for the PS5 have started to pitter-patter out of Sony's woodwork. Notably, they include Nioh two Remastered, which my colleague Marshall Honorof enjoyed, as well as God of War. I'll focus on the latter, which merely happens to be one of my favorite games of all fourth dimension.

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I first played God of War a few months after its April 2018 release date on a standard PS4. At 1080p resolution, and 30 frames per 2d at all-time, Santa Monica Studio's soft reboot of the God of War serial still looked fantastic. It likewise delivered brutal, kinetic and corybantic action, and told a wonderful father-and-son tale.

I was so enraptured by the game — afterwards finishing information technology, I thought about it for days — that I was rather forgiving of the fact that my poor PS4 sounded similar a jet trying to accept off while running information technology. And I accustomed that I was running God of War at 1080p on a 4K TV, even if the upscaler on my Television receiver is pretty good.

But going back to God of War a year or so afterward, it became clear that the PS4 was being pushed to its limits. Later on seeing Red Dead Redemption ii run at 4K on my Xbox Ane X, I wished God of War could do the aforementioned.

The PS4 Pro can run at a 4K checkerboard resolution without tanking the frame rate. Merely even so information technology, God of War ran just at thirty fps. Yous could go a higher frame rate, but not a steady 60 fps, if you dropped the resolution down to 1080p and sacrificed some of the graphical sharpness and clarity.

Invoking PS5 ability

Enter the PS5. I outset installed God of State of war on my PS5 as soon as I got the system fix upwardly, and was pleased to see that the console offered PS4 Pro performance and resolution options in the settings. That's all thanks to the PS5's backwards compatibility, which can emulate the PS4 Pro's performance. Simply it didn't evangelize the 4K, sixty fps experience that Sony pinned to the PS5's mast.

Withal, the new PS5 update for God of War changes that. While y'all can't become a native 4K resolution image, you do get checkerboard 4K running at what felt like a locked 60 fps.

Information technology'south properly glorious; a serious game-changer. All of the stunning details that Santa Monica Studio put into the environments, characters and textures of God of War were sharp and articulate.

Navigating the world, also as burying the Leviathan axe deep into the torso of a draugr, feels wonderful at 60 fps. Sure, it's not quite the 120 fps gaming that the PS5 can provide in some games. Just it's a huge stride up from the base of operations PS4 feel.

In fact, I'd contend that if I hadn't played God of War before, I'd actually wait to play it on Sony'southward new hardware, even though finding where to buy the PS5 is a deeply frustrating pursuit. And yep, I'g fully aware that I've previously alleged you don't demand a PS5 or Xbox Series 10 yet.

More of this please, Sony

PS5 DualSense controller — (Image credit: Future)

This God of State of war update is likewise promising news for PS5 backwards compatibility in general. While you tin can play a whole suite of PS4 games on the new hardware, including a curated selection through the PS Plus Drove, they aren't optimized for the PS5.

Nevertheless if other PlayStation-centric developers follow in Santa Monica Studio's footsteps, so nosotros could meet that change. I'm really hoping for an optimized version of Horizon Zero Dawn, so I can see its beautiful post, mail service-apocalyptic environments in full 4K, 60 fps glory.

But more that, I want a 60 fps version of Bloodborne. At 4K/sixty fps, I remember From Software's nighttime and brutal Victorian-esque horror game will take on a new, gory life. (And a lack of dropped frames could also help me not die pitifully to a New Game+ Father Gascoigne.)

Naturally, I'd still rather see Sony push its studios and developers to bring out more exclusive PS5 games. Only optimizations of stellar last-gen games sprinkle some rather lovely icing on what's already a promising gaming cake.

More: PS5 vs. Xbox Series Ten: Which console wins?

Roland Moore-Colyer is U.K. Editor at Tom'due south Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion articles. He often writes nigh gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he's too got an interest in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, ofttimes with a wait of curiosity on his face.