Horizon Forbidden West is the Latest Case of Complicated PS5 Upgrades
Horizon Forbidden West: The Latest Case of Complex PS5 Upgrades
Sony today announced that Horizon Forbidden West will be getting a few editions that can be pre-ordered now. We’re not going to be discussing that, but there are a few editions available. The Digital Deluxe Edition includes a lot of digital goods. There’s also a steel book special edition, a Collector’s Edition, which has a large statue of Aloy, the protagonist, and a book. Finally, there’s a Regalla Edition that’s even more exclusive with lots of little things. For a full rundown, check out the PlayStation Blog post about it.
Sony today announced that Horizon Forbidden West will be getting a few editions that can be pre-ordered now. We’re not going to be discussing that, but there are a few editions available. The Digital Deluxe Edition includes a lot of digital goods. There’s also a steel book special edition, a Collector’s Edition, which has a large statue of Aloy, the protagonist, and a book. Finally, there’s a Regalla Edition with even more doodads. For a full rundown, check out the PlayStation Blog post about it.
We’re here to discuss how Sony has not yet embraced the cross-generation train even though the PlayStation 5 is almost a year old. This is something Microsoft has publicly supported. If you own a PlayStation 4 and plan to upgrade to a PS5, you will need to purchase one of the special editions, rather than a regular version, to receive Horizon forbidden West for both consoles.
According to an FAQ, Horizon Forbidden West does not offer an upgrade option from digital deluxe to standard at a discount price. You’ll need to pay $79.99 more if you wish to access cross-gen support and save data for the game after you have already purchased the standard edition.
It’s not the first time Sony has concealed a PS5 upgrade behind an edition. The Ultimate Edition of Spider-Man: Miles Morales only included the remastered Marvel’s Spider-Man. __S.14__ This issue has not been present in every PS4-to-PS5 upgrade. However, games such as Miles Morales and Sackboy: A Big Adventure allow you to upgrade to PS5 without any restrictions if the PS4 copy is placed on your newer console. Sony has made an active decision to stop using the Horizon Forbidden East systems for PS4 to PS5 upgrade.
Meanwhile, Xbox has been leaning into a ubiquitous ecosystem with its Smart Delivery feature, which lets you buy a game on one system and play the optimized version on another. It’s impossible to buy an Xbox One version instead of an Xbox Series X/S game. This is a standard feature of the storefront, and it makes it easy for players to navigate the cross-generational era that we are in.
It wasn’t easy to figure out how to buy and play games in the first years of a new console’s launch. This applies to deciding whether to purchase a console when it is still in use or waiting to get a new one. These companies now make it possible to purchase a game on one console and play it on another. However, they often find ways to circumvent the customer-friendly structures that they have implemented. Sackboy: A Big Adventure and other games build goodwill for the PlayStation 5. But when big, popular titles like Horizon Forbidden West arrive, these same features disappear. Sony’s new loopholes for Horizon speak volumes in the face of a direct competitor who embraces the simplicity of purchasing a game once and then playing it anywhere you like.
