PS5 ports for Xbox games aren't surprising to me anymore. On November 4, Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition will be released on PS5. That launch comes just over a week after the reveal of Halo: Campaign Evolved, a remake of the original Halo game that brings the series to PS5 for the first time.

Ever since Xbox began bringing Xbox games to other platforms in 2024, I've seen shock and awe at every multiplatform announcement. While those feelings were definitely warranted at first, and you're fully justified to disagree with the strategy, we're now at the point where the reality of Xbox games being on PS5 should no longer be a surprise.

From Halo: Campaign Evolved to Age of Empires IV to The Outer Worlds 2 to Gears of War: Reloaded, any series that can remotely be considered a flagship for Xbox is now also on PS5. Whether you like it or not, this is the new reality for Xbox as long as this current initiative lasts.

Age of Empires IV continues Microsoft's trend of great PS5 ports

Microsoft has yet to release a bad or unoptimized PS5 port

The PS5 version of Age of Empires IV is very similar to the historical real-time strategy game originally designed for PC. The core gameplay loop of Age of Empires is all about building up resources so you can increase the size of your own settlements and armies before eventually taking on opponents who are doing the same.

While this style of strategy game is best played on PC, this console port feels very intuitive on a controller. It's easy to select multiple units at once, group them, and command them without feeling like your hand is cramping from everything that you have to do. It's an easy game to recommend to RTS fans.

Age of Empires IV doesn't really take advantage of the DualSense's unique capabilities, like the haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, but neither was really necessary for the experience. More importantly, there aren't any gnarly performance problems or bugs that render the game unplayable on PS5. Sometimes, the least conspicuous console ports are the best ones.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say Microsoft hasn't released a bad PS5 port. I played both Gears of War: Reloaded and Ninja Gaiden 4 on PS5 this fall, and never ran into a single technical issue with either game. I also haven't heard bad things about any of the PS5 ports going back to Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush last year. If PS5 ports are the new reality for Xbox Game Studios, at least it's doing them right.

PS5 ports of Xbox's games are clearly here to stay

The fact that the ports are inconspicuous is an indicator of that

One of the major reasons these PS5 ports aren't underbaked is because they are are core part of Xbox's strategy going forward. At first, Xbox executives tried to underplay how many games would go multiplatform in 2024. By the end of last year, as games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Forza Horizon 5 were confirmed for PS5, it became clear to me that no Xbox game was safe.

2025 has only proved that assumption was correct, as more ports arrived and Xbox's broader business goals were revealed. Forza, Gears of War, Age of Empires, and Microsoft Flight Simulator will all have debuted on PS5 by the end of the year, and Halo: Campaign Evolved is just around the corner. Microsoft no longer has a major franchise that's exclusive to Xbox hardware.

Xbox reportedly has a 30% profit margin goal to hit. If the goal is to make as much money as possible, then putting its games on the better-selling console of this generation is a necessity now, even if it would've felt taboo just five years ago. While PS5 versions of games like Gears of War: E-Day and Fable have yet to be announced, I'm not going to be or act surprised when they are confirmed for PlayStation consoles.

A future full of PS5 ports

Don't expect this genie to be put back in the bottle

I'm now fully bought into the idea that, by the end of 2026, every first-party Xbox game will be released across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S at the same time. Some stragglers still not on PS5 will need to come over and may be delayed from being on PlayStation consoles from day one, but this is the new reality we need to accept for Xbox's first-party games.

That's not to say you have to love that Xbox is doing this. Ridding the Xbox Series X|S of exclusives definitely makes it a much less appealing console, especially as the hardware and Xbox Game Pass keep rising in price. Soon, Xbox might be more like Nacon, a company that releases titles like Hell is Us and gaming peripherals, than PlayStation or Nintendo.

Still, having now played Age of Empires IV and more Xbox games on PS5, I'm willing to at least accept that this is the new normal for Xbox and that it isn't coming at the cost of game quality yet. You should, too, before ultimately deciding whether that future is one you want to support.