If you’ve shelled out $700 for a PS5 Pro, you’re already basking in the glow of crisper, sharper, smoother, and more stable graphics than the base PS5 can muster—provided you’re sitting close enough to your TV to actually notice. Sony’s mid-generation upgrade launched late last year with a promise of visual fidelity that makes your games pop, and it’s been delivering on that front with its fancy AI upscaling tech, PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR). But hold onto your DualSense, because Sony’s got bigger plans brewing for 2026: they’re bringing a new flavor of graphical wizardry to the PS5 Pro, and it’s based on AMD’s freshly minted FSR 4 upscaling tech.

Mark Cerny, the lead architect behind PlayStation’s hardware magic (and a name you’ve probably heard if you’ve ever geeked out over console specs), recently spilled the beans in an interview with Digital Foundry. “Our target is to have something very similar to FSR 4’s upscaler available on PS5 Pro for 2026 titles as the next evolution of PSSR,” he said. Translation? The PS5 Pro’s already-impressive visuals are about to get a serious upgrade, courtesy of a collaboration with AMD that’s been simmering behind the scenes for a couple of years now.

Let’s rewind a bit to set the stage. When the PS5 Pro hit shelves in November 2024, it came packing PSSR, a custom-built AI upscaling system that takes low-res game visuals—like 720p—and magically transforms them into glorious 4K without breaking a sweat. It even tosses in some extra particle effects for good measure, making explosions and spell effects look that much more dazzling. If you’ve seen it in action in titles like Spider-Man 2 or Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, you know it’s a step up from AMD’s earlier FSR 3 tech, which, while solid, didn’t always deliver the same level of polish. PSSR has been a big part of why the PS5 Pro feels like a worthwhile upgrade for the graphics-obsessed among us.

But Sony’s not resting on its laurels. Enter AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4), which just debuted alongside the company’s new RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics cards in early 2025. FSR 4 is AMD’s latest stab at AI-powered upscaling, and it’s shaping up to be a real contender against NVIDIA’s DLSS 3.5, which has long been the golden child of the PC gaming world.

Back in December 2024, Sony and AMD dropped a bombshell announcement about a multiyear partnership dubbed “Project Amethyst.” At the time, it sounded like one of those vague corporate buzzword deals—lots of talk about “innovation” and “collaboration,” but not much meat on the bones. Now, thanks to Cerny’s chat with Digital Foundry, we’ve got the juicy details. Project Amethyst kicked off in 2023, and FSR 4’s neural network—the brain behind its upscaling chops—was the first big win to come out of it. “The neural network (and training recipe) in FSR 4’s upscaler are the first results of the Amethyst collaboration,” Cerny explained. He’s calling it “a more advanced approach that can exceed the crispness of PSSR,” which is a bold claim considering how good PSSR already looks.

So why not just slap FSR 4 onto the PS5 Pro right now? Well, it’s not that simple. Cerny says it’ll take some time to “reimplement” FSR 4’s tech into the PS5 Pro’s ecosystem. For the foreseeable future, developers are still being encouraged to stick with PSSR for their Pro-enhanced games. But come 2026, Sony’s hoping to roll out this next-gen upscaler to give titles an even shinier coat of paint. Imagine Horizon Forbidden West or the inevitable God of War sequel with visuals so crisp you can count Aloy’s freckles or every strand of Kratos’ beard. That’s the dream Sony’s chasing.

What’s really intriguing here is how deep this Sony-AMD partnership seems to go. The PS5 Pro’s guts are already built on AMD silicon—its GPU is a souped-up version of the RDNA 3 architecture—so it makes sense that the two companies are cozying up. But Project Amethyst isn’t just about PlayStation. Cerny dropped a tantalizing hint that this collaboration could stretch beyond consoles. “Now to be clear, this technology has uses beyond PlayStation, and it’s about supporting broad work in machine learning across a variety of devices,” he told Digital Foundry. “The biggest win is when developers can freely move their code from device to device.” Could that mean FSR 4—or whatever comes next—showing up in Sony’s TVs, cameras, or even some wild new gadget we haven’t seen yet? Cerny’s not saying, but it’s fun to speculate.

For now, though, the focus is on gaming. Sony’s planning to take the best bits of FSR 4 and craft “its own implementations” for the PS5 Pro, rather than just borrowing AMD’s homework wholesale. That’s a smart move—it keeps the PlayStation ecosystem distinct while still leveraging AMD’s cutting-edge tech. And if you’re wondering what FSR 4 can do, Digital Foundry has you covered with a deep dive video comparing it to PSSR and other upscaling heavyweights. Spoiler: it’s impressive stuff, especially in motion.

As a gamer, this all sounds like a win. The PS5 Pro’s already a beast, but the idea of it getting even better in 2026—without needing to fork over another $700 for a new console—is music to my ears. Sure, it’ll take some patience, and not every game will get the FSR 4 treatment right away. But if Sony and AMD can keep pushing the envelope like this, the PS5 Pro might just stay relevant well into the decade.