Just yesterday, Sony announced that it would be delaying the release of The Last of Us Part II to give developer NaughtyDog more time to polish it up. While still unconfirmed, a recent report by Kotaku's Jason Schreier has stated that Ghost of Tsushima has also suffered a delay because of Sony’s decision. With the PS5 seemingly coming out at the end of 2020, is there a chance that we could see Ghost of Tsushima land on Sony's next-generation hardware?
To figure that out, we only need to look to the recent past. When the PS4 launched in 2013, Sony made a pretty big push to get original titles on it. This was mixed in with a helping of some cross-generation releases (such as Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Call of Duty: Ghosts) that gave users a clear reason to ditch their PS3's for Sony’s hot new box. Why spend $60 on a version of the game that looked and ran worse than its PS4 counterpart?
Interestingly, though, Sony launched The Last of Us on PS3 earlier that same year. While the specifics of the PS4's launch date were unknown at the time, many were preparing to say goodbye to their previous console and welcome a new one into their homes. Then came The Last of Us to the tune of rave reviews and incredible sales. Clearly people couldn't wait for the PS4 and had to game right now!
Fast forward about six months after the PS4 released and Sony announced during E3 2014 that The Last of Us Remastered would be hitting the console in one month. It was a move many anticipated before the PS4's launch, but one that also left a sour taste in some's mouths. Sony was now giving us the "better" version of the game instead of holding back the initial release to coincide with its next-gen launch. Was the game simply not ready for the PS4 in November, or did Sony know it could get away with charging twice?
Perhaps Sony wasn't thinking with its wallet in mind, but the release did set a precedent for the future. Games released towards the end of a console's lifecycle now had the potential to show up in enhanced form on that console's successor. Rockstar Games even seemed to take this lesson to heart by releasing Grand Theft Auto V roughly a year after its last-generation debut for both PS4 and Xbox One.
What does that mean for Ghost of Tsushima? While Sony will definitely have a PS4 version ready (it could even be a PS4 Pro exclusive), a PS5 version is likely to appear within a year of the game's launch. The Last of Us Part II will most likely follow suit, especially since its predecessor is the one that set the precedent. The PS5 will obviously have more advanced technology at its disposal, so why not make use of that hardware to get people double-dipping?
However, with backward compatibility said to be a guarantee, this might not be the case. For all intents and purposes, Sony could offer a patch for any PS4 game that makes it utilize unique PS5 features. Since Ghost of Tsushima may be launching mere weeks before the PS5, maybe a PS5 disc will simply be the PS4 version with any relevant patches applied. It would certainly make for a good excuse to release a "Game of the Year" edition and label it a PS5 exclusive.
It'll be interesting to see what path Sony takes, but for now, bets are on Ghost of Tsushima seeing some kind of PS5 support. Sony would be crazy to ignore the huge install base of PS4's (currently sitting at 100 million+ consoles), but it also needs to have something big for when the PS5 rolls around. What better than Ghost of Tsushima, a game we still don't know much about?