Compared to the Xbox Series X, the PS5's backward compatibility is so far fine. Some games, like "Ghost of Tsushima," have benefited from the 10.28 teraflops of processing power on Sony's bulky console. Others, like "Bloodborne," load faster but don't take advantage of the graphics performance as much.

However, Sony is beginning to release patches to optimize the best PS4 games for the PS5. Notable ones include "Nioh 2 Remastered" and "God of War," which my colleague Marshall Honorof enjoyed. Regarding the latter, I would like to note that it happens to be one of my favorite games of all time.

I first played "God of War" a few months after its April 2018 release date on a standard PS4. At 1080p resolution and 30 frames per second at best, Santa Monica Studio's soft reboot of the "God of War" series still looked fantastic. It also delivered frenetic action that was brutal and moving, and told a wonderful father-son story.

I was mesmerized by this game and thought about it for days after I finished it. And even though my TV's upscaler is quite good, I accepted the fact that I was running "God of War" in 1080p on my 4K TV.

But when I returned to "God of War" a year or so later, it became clear that my PS4 was being pushed to its limits. After seeing "Red Dead Redemption 2" run in 4K on my Xbox One X, I wished I could do the same for "God of War."

The PS4 Pro can run at 4K checkerboard resolution without losing frame rate. However, "God of War" still only ran at 30fps. By dropping the resolution to 1080p and sacrificing graphical sharpness and clarity, a higher frame rate can be achieved, but 60 fps cannot be stabilized.

Enter the PS5. After setting up the system and immediately installing "God of War" on the PS5, I was able to select the PS4 Pro performance and resolution options from the settings. This is thanks to the PS5's backward compatibility, which can emulate the PS4 Pro's performance. However, it did not offer the 4K, 60 fps experience that Sony had set as a must for the PS5.

But the new PS5 update for God of War changed that. While you won't get native 4K resolution, you will get checkerboard 4K video that seems to be locked to 60fps.

This is truly amazing and game-changing. All of the stunning detail that Santa Monica Studios put into the environments, characters, and textures of God of War was sharp and clear.

Navigating the world and driving Leviathan's axe deep into Draugr's torso felt amazing at 60fps. Certainly not as good as the 120 fps that the PS5 delivers on some games. But it is a big step up from the basic PS4 experience.

In fact, if I had never played God of War, I would wait to play it on Sony's new hardware. And I am well aware that I have previously declared that the PS5 and Xbox Series X are not needed yet.

This "God of War" update is also promising news for PS5 backward compatibility in general: while you can play a set of PS4 games on the new hardware, including a select selection from the PS Plus collection, they are not optimized for PS5 PS5, but they have not been optimized for PS5.

However, if other PlayStation-centric developers follow in the footsteps of Santa Monica Studio, we may see that change. I am eagerly awaiting an optimized version of Horizon Zero Dawn. It's a beautiful post-apocalyptic environment in full 4K, 60fps glory.

But more than that, I want a 60fps version of "Bloodborne"; I think 4K/60fps would give From Software's dark and brutal Victorian horror game new bloody life. (Without the frame dropping, we might not have to let New Game+'s Father Gascoigne die a pathetic death.) )

Of course, we hope that Sony will push studios and developers to release more games exclusively for the PS5. However, optimizing the great games of the last generation console sprinkles rather nice icing on an already promising game cake.