PS5 has a designated quick-load feature called PS5 Activities, designed to instantly connect players to specific parts of games.
A next-gen preview from GameReactor Spain (translated by TheSixthAxis) confirmed the long-rumored feature. PS5 Activities will allow players to instantly load specific missions, modes, or activities of games directly from the console's home screen - without going through the actual game's menus. GameReactor's preview (which has been pulled but is archived here) focused on the upcoming racing game WRC 9: World Rally Championship, and in this context, PS5 Activities can be used to "directly access races or parts of the game."
This isn't the first we've heard of this feature, though it is the first time it's been called PS5 Activities. System architect Mark Cerny discussed a similar feature with Wired back in October 2019, when the PS5 was much more of an enigma.
"Multiplayer game servers will provide the console with the set of joinable activities in real time," Cerny said at the time. "Single-player games will provide information like what missions you could do and what rewards you might receive for completing them – and all of those choices will be visible in the UI. As a player you just jump right into whatever you like."
This also lines up with a patent which was published this past March. In it, Sony outlined "Dynamic Interfaces for Launching Direct Gameplay," which was described as a way to display several "templates" for loading paths that allow players to jump straight into specific in-game activities. All of this information gives us a much better idea of how the PS5 home screen will improve on the PS4's, and how the console will leverage its proprietary M2 SSD to do much more than minimize fast-travel loading times.
Sony reckons the PS5 is approximately 100 times faster than PS4 in most applications.
