Ubisoft investigating missing Watch Dogs Legion, Assassin's Creed Valhalla PS4 upgrades on PS5

UPDATE: Players report fix now live.

News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief

Updated on Dec. 2, 2020

UPDATE 2/12/20: Players now report a fix has been pushed live, and came into effect yesterday evening UK time. Ubisoft is yet to acknowledge the fix but, for those affected, it's worth checking if your PS5 upgrade is now available.

UPDATE 1/12/20: We're approaching the two-week anniversary of PlayStation 5's UK launch, but many Ubisoft game owners are still unable to upgrade PS4 titles such as Watch Dogs Legion and Assassin's Creed Valhalla to their shinier PS5 versions.

The problem has been an issue since the console's UK launch, though word picked up around a week back. It's then we highlighted the issue to Ubisoft, and have subsequently heard the company is trying to fix it.

Yesterday, amidst growing noise from fans impatient for this to be sorted, Ubisoft's Twitter Support account acknowledged the problem publicly for the first time. There's still no word on when a fix might go live and no explanation for why the UK in particular has been impacted.

We are aware players in the UK are experiencing issues upgrading physical versions of some Ubisoft games from PS4 to PS5. We're working to resolve this, and can confirm anyone experiencing this issue will still be eligible for their free upgrade. Stay tuned for more information.
— Ubisoft Support (@UbisoftSupport) November 30, 2020

I've again asked Ubisoft for more information.

ORIGINAL STORY 23/11/20: PlayStation 4 versions of Watch Dogs Legion and Assassin's Creed Valhalla should both offer free upgrades on PlayStation 5 - but many owners have said the option to redeem these isn't showing up on their store.

Ubisoft has today told Eurogamer it is aware and investigating the issue, which has been reported by dozens of people on Twitter and on Ubisoft's own support forums.

Word of the problem only became widespread last week after the release of the PS5 here in Europe, despite the console launching elsewhere in the world seven days prior.

One potential workaround I've seen suggested in various places is to change your console's region to Turkey, which has then made the upgrade option appear for some people. [UPDATE: Specifically, I'm told, to create a second PSN account set to Turkey to download the digital edition which then runs in English.]

So what's going on here? Well, it's worth remembering the PlayStation Store has different versions of a game for different regions, as well as different console generations - and a common suggestion online is the European store listing is at fault.

While you can still play the PS4 versions of these games on PS5, you'll need the next-gen version to take advantage of improved audio and visuals, raytracing, adaptive trigger support and faster load times.

Today, Ubisoft sent through the following instructions to try and get the upgrade (TL;DR, you should select "view product" and check in the game's hub) - though I've also heard from affected users saying "view product" isn't accessible to them.

Here's Ubisoft's suggestion:

Insert the eligible PS4 game disc.
Go to the game hub for the PS4 game. Users must select "VIEW PRODUCT"
Select the upgrade offer on the game hub and review the upgrade offer.
Select Download (or purchase with the discount price) to download/purchase content.
After the download is complete, you can play the PS5 digital game by inserting the PS4 game disc. You will need to keep the disc inserted each time to play the game.

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