PlayStation Quietly Drops Free PS5 Update, Massive Quality of Life Upgrade

A free PS5 update has just been teased by Sony, and part of it is already available for certain users.

Last week, Sony announced that a new update would be rolling out in March to improve the PSSR feature which is available for PlayStation 5 Pro users.

The update is set for a wide release across all PS5 Pro systems in March, but some users can already take advantage of the upgrade.

As reported by Push Square, while the upcoming PSSR upgrade has not yet hit all users, the feature is already live in Resident Evil Requiem and can be used by anyone playing the game on the PS5 Pro.

Before we get into exactly what these new improvements are, I’ll explain a little about what PSSR actually is.

PSSR stands for PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution and it’s essentially the console’s own upscaling solution for running games at lower resolution and then upscaling them to higher ones, similar to DLSS and FSR.

As a result of this, games on the PS5 Pro are capable of running at 60fps and 4K resolutions, even if they’re not natively running at that resolution.

Resident Evil Requiem Gets New Upgraded PSSR Technology For Better Frames And Visual Quality

The new enhancements for PSSR that have arrived with Resident Evil Requiem can be activated with a new “Enhance PSSR Image Quality” option in the console settings.

As Capcom puts it, the upgrade enhances “the presentation quality of the protagonist through an upgraded version of RE Engine to deepen the player’s immersion in horror.

“For example, each individual strand of hair and beard is rendered as a polygon, allowing it to move realistically in response to body motion and wind. The way light passes through his hair changes depending on how the strands of hair are overlapped as well.”

These upgrades come as a result of PlayStation’s partnership with AMD, which uses its FSR 4 technology to update the PSSR technology with recent improvements in the tech.

More games will be announced to use the improved PSSR technology later this month, and we’d expect any new and upcoming releases like Saros and 007: First Light to also take advantage of these upgrades when they launch.

Indeed, considering how great Resident Evil Requiem looks on the PS5 Pro with all of these upgrades activated, it's going to be a fantastic year for everything else supported by PSSR.