Train Sim World 2 PS5 PlayStation 5 1

When we put together our PlayStation 5 backwards compatibility test, we focused on the biggest and most popular games. While we were extremely impressed with the results posted by Days Gone and Ghost of Tsushima, the other titles left us a little bit dismayed; Grand Theft Auto V and The Last of Us: Part II enjoyed no real gains, while God of War could be played at 60 frames-per-second – but only in 1080p.

Obviously, the latter examples are not the fault of the hardware, as it all comes down to the design of the original titles. But this coloured our impressions a little bit, especially with load times being barely improved on the next-gen console.

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However, one title we’d wanted to come back to once we had a bit more time was Train Sim World 2. Now obviously this release won’t be on many radars, and that’s why we waited before testing it out. Perhaps we should have taken a look earlier, though, because the results are quite frankly remarkable on Sony’s new hardware.

Naturally this is far from the best looking game on the PS4 Pro, but for whatever reason it was unbelievably demanding. We liked to play it in 4K, although it appeared to use resolution scaling, meaning sometimes it would drop lower than 2160p. Worse still, the performance was dreadful, regularly slipping below 30 frames-per-second and stuttering a lot.

We picked the fastest train in the game, the DB BR 406 ICE 3, which can travel at up 300km/h. And we set a course for Aachen from Koln in the most demanding weather conditions possible: a snow storm. The results, as demonstrated below, are buttery smooth:

Not only is the resolution sharper, but it runs at an almost locked 60 frames-per-second. There are still micro-stutters as some elements of geometry load in, but these are minor compared to the PS4 Pro, where it would sometimes pause completely for over a second at times. We’re running the game from an external HDD, so it’s possible the SSD may improve the asset streaming even further.

While we’ve been impressed with the results we’ve seen in Days Gone and Ghost of Tsushima, this is by far the best example of PS5 backwards compatibility we’ve experienced thus far. We simply can’t stress enough how poorly this game runs on the PS4 Pro, and almost all of its problems are cleaned up and corrected on Sony’s next-gen console. Incredible results!

Are there any other games you'd like us to try with PS5 backwards compatibility before launch? We're open to suggestions where the results may be as impressive as this. Let us know in the comments section below.