After years of being the brand known for exclusive games, it looks like Sony’s PlayStation is opening up to the world of PC gaming.
Initially flagged by eagle-eyed users on the Restera forum, and then checked by me, PlayStation exclusive games that have been, and are being, ported over to the PC are now published under the name/label of “PlayStation PC LLC” on Steam. This used to be PlayStation Mobile.
Which all makes it seem like this is the start of a tide of PS4 exclusive games coming to the PC. And I’m crossing my fingers tightly for a PC version of Bloodborne.
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Where once the idea of first-party PlayStation games appearing anywhere other than on PlayStation consoles seemed confined to the fever dreams of cross-platform advocates, we are now in a situation where Sony seems a little happier to throw exclusive PS4-era games towards the PC.
We’ve already seen Horizon Zero Dawn, a notable PS4 exclusive, make its way to the PC last year. And now God of War, arguably one of the best PlayStation exclusives ever made and indeed one of the best games ever, is coming to PC on January 14, 2022, with Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection set to follow at some point next year.
Now the “PlayStation PC” label heavily suggests that this clutch of PlayStation games could just be the beginning of Sony's surge to PC. This might infuriate some die-hard PlayStation fans who might believe the best PS4 games should remain locked to the console and the PS5’s backwards compatibility mode. But as much as both consoles hold a special place in my gaming heart, I think this is excellent news.
As it stands, there aren’t a great deal of PS4 games that have been optimized for the PS5. The Last Us 2 and God of War have both received 60 frames per second patches, and a few other games look and run better on the PS5 than on the PS4. But the extent of this enhanced support pales in comparison to the comprehensive backwards compatibility and optimization the Xbox Series X offers.
I’m haven’t been overly fussed by this, as I’m more keen on seeing Sony dedicate resources to making new games than improving older ones; after all, our best PS5 games list could do with more original titles. That was until I returned to playing Bloodborne.
It’s one of my favorite games of all time, even though I suck at it. Sadly, it would often chug along on the PS4 and hasn't got a boost in performance on the PS5 either. While I’m still holding out on a PS5 patch, a PC version could solve this problem.
While finding powerful PC parts like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 might be a nightmare at the moment, even a gaming PC from a few years ago has plenty of power to take a PS4 game by the scruff of its neck and drag it into the performance metrics we’d expect for 2021.
In the case of Bloodborne, this could mean running the game at 4K and hitting 60 fps or more. Plus, imagine Bloodborne running at a frame rate that could take advantage of a 144Hz display. While doing that might not mean access to reworked textures or graphical features, it would potentially open up Bloodborne to the PC game modding community, who could work to give the game a bit of a polish (not that Bloodborne looks bad at all).
There’s a chance that the finished version of Bloodborne has a few graphical concessions made to get it running on the PS4. So a PC version could, theoretically, ship with graphical effects and settings that may have been cut from the PS4 version, as the extra power of the PC could take care of the heavy lifting a PS4 would have struggled with.
This is all speculation from a guy who just wants to play Bloodborne at 60 fps and not suffer long loading times each time he misses a dodge and has an abhorrent beast cleave his character in two and send him back to the last lamp — aka save point.
But we’ve seen Horizon Zero Dawn get specific PC settings. So I see no reason why the same couldn’t be done for other PlayStation games that get ported over to the PC, even if they require a seemingly disproportionate amount of power to run well.
In short, PlayStation games coming over to the PC may be an odd frontier for Sony, but it’s an exciting one. And it means people who don’t want to expose themselves to the draining experience of finding a PS5 restock, won’t necessarily be left out in the cold when it comes to playing some of the best games around.
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