PS5 Pro Enhanced patches will be free just like PS4 to PS5 upgrades

Just like the last-gen to current-gen upgrade path, PS5 Pro's game enhancement patches will also be free.

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Sony's new PS5 Pro will arrive on November 7 for a premium $700 price tag. The major selling point of the new system is that it can offer big in-game performance leaps in existing PS5 games through its combined trio of hardware and software innovations; new AI-driven upscaling via PSSR can be used in tandem with a new beefier GPU to actually double in-game frame rates and even triple raytracing performance.

But to get the most out of the PS5 Pro, developers will need to issue game-specific patches. Sony has confirmed that these patches, which are known as PS5 Pro Enhanced patches, will be free. Anyone who bought a PS5 during 2020 knows about this process--developers and publishers would roll out a series of free upgrade patches that would bring PS4 games forward to the new PS5 generation, complete with boosts in graphical fidelity and frame rates.

The PlayStation 5 Pro has two ways to upgrade in-game performance: Game Boost, which is native and automatically applied to supported games, and PS5 Pro Enhanced, which are software-optimized patches that are released by game developers. Sony has told CNET that 40-50 games will receive PS5 Pro Enhanced upgrades when the system launches.

This is similar to how Sony handled in-game boosts across the PS4 to PS5 generational shift; the PS5 also had these two separate ways to raise game performance.

Here's what PS5 architect Mark Cerny said about the features in a PlayStation Blog post:

PS5 Pro Game Boost

• Other enhancements include PS5 Pro Game Boost, which can apply to more than 8,500 backward compatible PS4 games playable on PS5 Pro.

PS5 Pro Enhanced

• It's humbling to see how game creators have embraced the latest technology from PS5 Pro, and several games will be patched with free software updates for gamers to take advantage of PS5 Pro's features. These games can be identified with a PS5 Pro Enhanced label within their title.