Minecraft is going native on the PlayStation 5. Microsoft-owned Mojang announced on Thursday that PS5 owners will soon be getting a version to call their own, instead of playing the PS4 version through the console’s backward compatibility with that platform.
What does this mean? Generally speaking, native versions perform better than backward-compatible or emulated versions because they’re made for the hardware itself. “By developing a native version of Minecraft for PS5, we’ll be able to make the game run more effectively on the PS5’s hardware,” Mojang said in the post announcing the new version.
Bigger picture it means Mojang — again, a Microsoft-owned company — is genuinely platform agnostic when it comes to serving and maintaining the 13-year-old standard bearer of sandbox survival-types. Wherever gamers want to play Minecraft, they’ll put it there in the best possible shape.
For now, this is a “preview” version of Minecraft. That means PS5 owners of the (again, PS4) game can find the build by navigating to the settings menu and then choosing “preview.” Mojang noted that the preview includes the new Tricky Trials update. They’re previewing the PS5-native Minecraft before releasing it because they want to get feedback, particularly bug reports and other problems, from real-life users playing the game as they normally do.
Because it’s a preview version, multiplayer is limited to players on the same platform, in this case PS4 and PS5. The preview version of Minecraft for PlayStation 5 will not have access to the Minecraft Store, either. This FAQ on the official Minecraft page will answer other questions.
