Minecraft’s Official PS5 Release Date Now Available, and No, It Won’t Have Ray Tracing

What you need to know

Mojang Studios is working on a native version of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition for PS5.
This is not as exciting as it sounds, since it is mainly about improving performance and render distances.
With that in mind, Mojang has confirmed that the new PS5 version will officially launch on October 22.
Current PS4 owners will receive the PS5 version for free, and PS5 beta testers will have access to all Minecraft features cross-platform.

Here’s a fun fact for you! Minecraft is not optimized for next-gen, and instead runs in backward compatibility on Xbox and PlayStation platforms. This is not How a big deal on Xbox with its smoother cross-gen compatibility, but it’s disappointing across the board. We’ve known for a while that Mojang Studios was working on a native PS5 version of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition with the support of community testers, and now we have an official release date.

Minecraft Coming to PlayStation 5 October 22, 2024and will be a free update for all PS4 owners. It’s a great change and part of Mojang’s new approach to Minecraft development, but it’s not as exciting as it might seem at first glance.

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Better performance for PS5 players and nothing more

(Image source: Xbox Game Studios)

For years, many Minecraft console players have hoped that Mojang Studios would properly optimize Minecraft to take full advantage of the more powerful current-gen consoles, such as adding ray tracing. At the very least, many felt that the Xbox Series X|S deserved better treatment, being the home ecosystem for Minecraft (at least on paper). Unfortunately, that never happened, and there’s no sign of it happening. That won’t change with this release.

Minecraft may get a native PS5 release, where it technically isn’t optimized for Xbox Series X|S, but ultimately it won’t be all that different. Minecraft will run more reliably at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second (FPS) and support longer render distances on PS5 after this release, but it already does so on Xbox Series X|S, which Mojang started testing almost a year ago. There won’t be any enhanced features or ray tracing, just a native release that takes better advantage of PlayStation 5 than Sony’s PS4 Backward Compatibility.

This is still good news for Minecraft players on PS5, though, as improved performance is always welcome. More Minecraft news is just around the corner, as Mojang is set to air its first new and improved Minecraft Live show in a few weeks. We may even learn more about the upcoming live-action Minecraft movie, which just dropped its first cursed trailer. Then, on October 22, 2024, a free PS5 update for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition will be available. You can check out the original announcement post on Minecraft.net.