PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan’s comments from last year about how Sony “believes in generations” have really come back to bit the company of late. While we’ve definitely had PS5 exclusive releases – including the likes of Demon’s Souls, Destruction AllStars, Returnal, and the upcoming Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart – the number of PlayStation first party games that have been cross-gen has surprised quite a few people.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales released for both consoles, while Horizon Forbidden West will be playable on PS4 as well. Meanwhile, Sony recently also confirmed that both God of War: Ragnarok (or whatever the game ends up being called) and Gran Turismo 7 will both be cross-gen as well.
Interestingly enough, according a recently published VGC article, God of War: Ragnarok was always intended as a cross-gen game, same as Horizon Forbidden West- both games began development as titles that would release for both PS4 and PS5. Gran Turismo 7, on the other hand, is a different story- allegedly, the decision to make the racing sim a cross-gen release was made fairly recently.
Both these recent announcements have caught fans off-guard. While Sony remained cagey about whether or not God of War would be cross-gen, they didn’t state that it would be coming to PS4 when the game was announced, similar to how they handled things with Horizon Forbidden West. Gran Turismo 7, on the other hand, was very explicitly advertised as a PS5 exclusive.
It remains to be seen how widespread Sony’s cross-gen approach will be with their upcoming releases. They apparently have over two dozen games in the works, so there’s a very good chance that quite a few of them will end up coming to the PS4 as well.
