PlayStation 5 Review - 7 Ups & 3 Downs

1. Backwards Compatibility Extends Beyond PS4

Sony are very much playing catch-up to Xbox's phenomenal Game Pass service, and besides announcing the PS Plus Collection (a smattering of top-tier titles from the last generation only available on PS5), they've been quick to point out that "99%" of PS4 games will work on PS5.

That holds true once you get on the console, however I feel it's worth pointing out that this "99%" designator applies to literally any game that EVER worked on PlayStation 4. It does not need to be a PS4 game at launch - only something that saw a PS4 version.

For example, you can go all the way back to the PS2 with the likes of The Warriors, GTA 3 and Vice City. These titles get recognised as "PS4" in the Library's category list, but it means you end up with an Xbox-like library of multiple generations of games, ready to be played.

In terms of gameplay thereafter, through sheer use of the SSD to load file sizes and games in general, you will see a notable uptick in load times when diving into any past-gen title.

It's going to be on the developers to release PS5-specific patches to optimise things outside of what's happening natively, but in my testing, everything from Dark Cloud on PS2 to the recently released Ghostrunner loaded faster than on PS4.