Sony announced Quick Spectral Super Resolution (QSSR) for the standard PlayStation 5 on October 1, 2026. QSSR is a new, lightweight tier of AI-powered image upscaling, created in collaboration with AMD under the Project Amethyst partnership. Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei became the first titles to support QSSR through updates released the same day, while Sony said PSSR remains the "gold standard" on PS5 Pro.
What's behind the technology
When PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) launched alongside the PS5 Pro, players and developers began asking whether similar image-quality improvements could come to the standard PS5. PSSR analyzes a game frame pixel by pixel and upscales it with AI — producing a more detailed and more stable image than traditional methods. According to Sony, PSSR's compute requirements had until now made it impossible to bring this experience to the standard PS5.
QSSR overcomes that barrier with two key innovations. The first is a streamlined neural network architecture; the second is a hand-tuned implementation that squeezes the most out of the PS5's capabilities. The essence of the upscaling approach is that a game is first rendered at a lower internal resolution, and then a trained neural network reconstructs the frame into a sharper, higher-resolution image — the AI-driven approach tries to recover lost detail rather than simply stretching the image. The company calls QSSR a "fast evolution" of PSSR: the new library significantly improves image detail and stability even on the base console, while PSSR stays the highest-quality option on PS5 Pro. Full details about the technology, including comments from engineers at both studios and comparison videos, are presented in the official announcement on PlayStation.Blog.
First games: Wolverine and Yōtei
Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei received QSSR as an additional graphics option through updates released on October 1, the same day as the announcement. Players can select the new mode separately in settings; existing graphics modes remain unchanged — the update doesn't replace old settings but adds a new variant alongside them. So far these are the only two titles supporting QSSR.
"The Insomniac team works tirelessly to make every one of our games a showcase of PlayStation hardware, and we're thrilled that Marvel's Wolverine is one of the first titles bringing this new QSSR technology to players. QSSR adds pixel-level precision and stability to our environments — revealing additional detail on the bustling streets of Madripoor, the narrow alleys of Shinjuku, and many other locations across Logan's adventure. It's a great companion for the launch of Marvel's Wolverine and a wonderful taste of the PS5 Pro experience for our PS5 players."
— Mike Fitzgerald, Chief Technology Officer, Insomniac Games (PlayStation.Blog)
Fitzgerald also added that he is pleased to see PlayStation's technical teams continuously improving the PS5 platform and hopes more games will use QSSR in the future.
According to Jasmin Petrie, lead rendering engineer at Sucker Punch Productions, QSSR is strong at resolving fine detail on characters and environments and delivers a level of temporal stability previously impossible on the PS5 console. She said the studio has long dreamed of all PS5 players experiencing the stunning image quality PSSR delivers on PS5 Pro, and QSSR is a positive step toward that goal.
An open path for all developers
Sony is offering QSSR broadly to all PlayStation developers and says it looks forward to seeing these improvements in many future games. The library is not limited to Sony's internal studios — the company is keeping it open to all teams on the platform and is ready to support the adoption of the new technology in upcoming projects.
Sony has thus formalized a two-tier system. At the top sits PSSR — it remains the "gold standard" on PS5 Pro, aimed at projects demanding the highest image quality. QSSR, on the lower tier, boosts image detail and stability within the technical limits of the standard PS5, bringing AI-assisted upscaling to base-console owners for the first time. The Verge also reported on the technology's presentation on October 1, confirming that QSSR first appeared in exactly these two games. The announcement text was published on PlayStation.Blog, which carries the full comments from both studios' representatives alongside the technology details. The Verge also covered the technology's wider rollout.
