Hot Wheels Unleashed is one of the rare games that lack a free PS4 to PS5 or XB to XSX upgrade, and doesn’t even offer an upgrade program.
In the current age where most of the games are getting cross-generation releases, and most of these are completely free to upgrade and play on either the PS4 or PS5, and Xbox One or Xbox Series X, Milestone is at the forefront of lacking an upgrade program for their games, and not even offering one for a price let alone a free upgrade.
I recently had to look at Hot Wheels Unleashed on the PlayStation Store which was being offered on sale, and to my surprise, the game doesn’t even have an upgrade for the PS4 or PS5. I decided to take a look at the Xbox One and Xbox Series versions to confirm it, and the same thing applied there as well.
Are There Any Hot Wheels Unleashed Cross-Platform Upgrade Options?
No, there is absolutely nothing that you can do here. Why is this the case, I have no idea? Almost every major game that gets released these days either offers a free upgrade to the PS5 version or charges a nominal fee for it ($10) to offer the upgrade. But Milestone has completely dropped such an incentive forcing its users to either pick the PS5/XSX version and lose on the PS4/XB version, or just purchase the current-generation version.
Why is this important? For one, I still have my old PS4 Pro, and I am sure others have it too. Some people share their accounts within the family and considering the shortage of PS5/XSX, it makes sense if they only have one for themselves while others have a PS4.
In this case, people are stuck with choosing between playing the last-generation version on their shiny new consoles or paying almost twice the price to get the game on both platforms. To top it, the listing on the PlayStation Store is also misleading, which mentions both platforms but when you click to add the game to the cart, you end up with the PS5 version only. If you hadn’t paid attention, chances are you would have bought that version and were unable to download it on the PS4.
Xbox Live Store has a slightly better layout since the title mentions Xbox Series S|X for two separate listings on the store, but it is still confusing for someone who is just casually browsing the store thinking they purchase the Xbox Series version when in reality it could be just the Xbox One version.
So if you are thinking of purchasing Hot Wheels Unleashed, don’t do it. There is no reason to support such a greedy practice especially when it is entirely uncommon in the industry at the moment. Support the developers/publishers which offer free upgrades for their games, as Square Enix did recently with Final Fantasy VII Remake. Even charging a nominal fee is fine, but lacking entirely one is just absurd at this point. There is still a shortage of current-generation consoles and anyone who wants to purchase Hot Wheels Unleashed right now is out of luck if they are planning to upgrade to the PS5 later down the line.
