Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut Solves PS5 Save Transfer Woes

We’d had some indication from the likes of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Saints Row The Third Remastered that Sony had solved the PlayStation 5’s curious save transfer system, but Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut puts any scepticism beyond doubt. In order to move your progress from the PS4 version to its next-gen counterpart, you’ll simply need a save stored locally on your system.

So, for example, if you’ve played Ghost of Tsushima through backwards compatibility in the past, then you don’t need to do anything: just boot the Director’s Cut and select Transfer PS4 Console Save. That’s it: you’ll load into your game exactly where you left of – and, yes, all of the Trophies that you’ve unlocked previously will pop.

If, however, you last played Jin’s heroic adventure on a PS4, then all you need to do is download your data from the PS Plus cloud onto your PS5. And if, of course, you don’t have Sony’s subscription, then you can just use a USB stick to move the data to your new console. But that’s it: you don’t need to install your PS4 copy and upload your save data within the game or anything like that.

Sony was roundly criticised at launch for its complicated save transfer procedures. Effectively, the PS5 couldn’t read PS4 save data, so the only solution was for developers to implement upload protocols into their last-gen games, so that the information could be unpacked and then converted online. This wasn’t ideal because it meant installing the PS4 game just to transfer the data.

But that problem, like many other PS5 teething troubles, appears to be a thing of the past. It’s not ideal that the console launched in somewhat of a half-baked state, but the most important thing is that these issues are being eradicated relatively promptly. Hopefully we never have to deal with this particular drawback again.