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Horizon Forbidden West PS4 to PS5 next-gen upgrade now free

By Matthew Liebl

PARIS, FRANCE - NOVEMBER 04: PlayStation logo is displayed during the 'Paris Games Week' on November 04, 2017 in Paris, France. PlayStation is a series of video game consoles created and developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. 'Paris Games Week' is an international trade fair for video games and runs from November 01 to November 5, 2017. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)
PARIS, FRANCE - NOVEMBER 04: PlayStation logo is displayed during the 'Paris Games Week' on November 04, 2017 in Paris, France. PlayStation is a series of video game consoles created and developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. 'Paris Games Week' is an international trade fair for video games and runs from November 01 to November 5, 2017. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images) /
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This past week, Sony announced that pre-orders for Horizon Forbidden West had gone live. But what had been meant as a celebration with all the different special editions quickly backfired.

In revealing the different pre-order options, Sony had announced that Dual Entitlement — the ability to upgrade from PS4 to PS5 — would not apply to Horizon Forbidden West. Making things worse, Sony wasn’t even offering the usual $10 upgrade fee, which usually just reflects the difference in price between last-gen and cross-gen.

Instead, if you wanted the ability to play the PS4 and PS5 versions of Horizon Forbidden West, you had to purchase the Digital Deluxe version for $79.99, which is actually $10 more expensive than the PS5 version on its own.

Given that PS5 consoles are hard to come by due to worldwide shortages, this next-gen upgrade policy was met with frustration and backlash from just about everyone. And Sony received well-deserved criticism — especially since the company had originally promised free upgrades for cross-gen launch titles. And if you recall, Horizon Forbidden West was originally considered a launch window title.

Thankfully, Sony has come to its senses. In an update to the original blog post, Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan acknowledged that the pre-order kickoff “missed the mark.” The company announced it was reversing its next-gen upgrade policy for Horizon Forbidden West. The new policy is now as follows:

"Players who purchase Horizon Forbidden West on PlayStation 4 will be able to upgrade to the PlayStation 5 version for free."

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I’d like to praise Sony for coming to its senses on its next-gen upgrade policy, but I am honestly baffled it took such a response for them to realize how horrible the original policy was. It was a corporate decision made by some out-of-touch suit that was based purely on greed. Read the room, man. When Microsoft is offering free upgrades for basically every game and most other publishers are simply offering an upgrade for the difference in cost, who at Sony thought it was a great idea to upcharge even more? Seriously, who is making the calls at Sony and why does no one have their finger on the pulse of the general gaming industry?

I’m not going to praise those at Sony for coming to their senses because they’ve clearly got horrible senses to begin with. How about you hire someone who actually has a feel for the general gamer?

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