How to play your PS4 games on the new PS5?

If you’re lucky enough to get your hands on a brand new PlayStation 5, you’ve become the owner of a PlayStation 4 at the same time because games for four should also work on five. You can continue playing games on the new console almost immediately, but here we will explain the steps you need to go through first.

Compatibility Note:

Sony says that the "vast majority" of PS4 games will run on the PS5, and that "selected" games will also have better FPS to enjoy better performance. At the same time, Sony also acknowledges that you could experience “errors or unexpected behavior” when playing PS4 games on the PS5. As for the controller, you can use a PS4 DualShock or PS5 DualSense to play your PS4 titles on the PlayStation 5, depending on how comfortable you feel (you still can’t use your old DualShock with brand new PS5 games).

When it comes to PlayStation VR, the situation is a bit more complicated. The vast majority of games will work, but you’ll also need to switch your PlayStation camera from PS4 and sign up for Sony’s free camera adapter for PS5.

For PS4 games that you purchased on a disc, you can insert the same disc into your PS5 (unless it’s a digital edition), go to the games screen, and run it, although you may need to download a new update first. In some cases, you will also receive a free PS5 update to download and install.

As for digital titles, you can download them again on the PS5 from the Games Library section under games. Another potentially faster option, depending on the number of games you have, is to move PS4 games to your PS5 on an external hard drive: This is probably a more appealing method if you already have a lot of titles stored on an external drive on your old console or don’t want to take up much space on disk on a new console with old games or maybe both. 

If you have not already set up an external hard drive on the PS4, after connecting, go to Settings, Devices, and USB storage devices: select the drive, then select Format as Extended Storage and confirm your choice. Then the games will be installed on an external drive by default - you can change this by going to Settings and then Storage, select System Storage, and press the Options button.

You can move games from the PS4's internal storage to an external hard drive - ready to play on the PS5 - by going to Settings and Storage and then selecting System and Application Storage. Select your game, tap Options, then select Move to extended storage. Select games to move, then select Move.

After that, the external hard drive simply needs to be plugged into the USB port on the back of the PlayStation 5, and PS4 titles will be displayed when you go to the Game Library page under Games (when it comes to game discs, you’ll still need a disc). For many users, this will be the fastest and easiest way to get started with older PS4 games.

You can also use your local network to transfer titles between PS4 and PS5. This will be suggested during the PlayStation 5 setup process, but you can do it later: You must first be logged in to the same WiFi network and the same PlayStation account on both consoles, then you need to open Settings on your PS5 and select System, System Software and Transfer data.

To speed up the process considerably, you can connect your consoles with an Ethernet cable. Lastly, there’s data for saving games - this can be transferred using the data transfer procedure we just described, whenever you first set up your PlayStation 5 or later. Saved data can also be synchronized via the cloud (PlayStation Plus) or an external USB drive: select Settings, Application data management, Stored data in the storage system, and then either Transfer to network storage or Copy to a USB storage device on PS4.

Back to the PS5, after signing in to the PlayStation Plus or connecting a USB storage device as needed, go to Settings, Saved Data, and Game / App Settings, then Saved Data (PS4) to see your data in the cloud and on local options. Most of the saved PS4 data should work on the PS5, although this is ultimately left to the game developers themselves, and this is mostly about them, the saved data may not be able to be transferred, even if the game itself works.