Towards the end of 2020 – which has been mysterious and full of worry and angst up till now – gaming is possibly going to be revolutionised for the foreseeable decade with Sony and Microsoft lining up to launch the new PlayStation and Xbox consoles, respectively. The PlayStation team, however, revealed the stellar look of the new PS5 controller, which they’ve aptly named as ‘DualSense’. With features such as haptic feedback, and adaptive L2 and R2 triggers, they’ve teased our minds to begin imagining the fresh experiences one can have in the virtual world of games.
Speaking of the design, the DualSense controller no longer follows the colour code of traditional PlayStation controllers which were just in one colour. In fact, the images are pretty self-explanatory where most of the controller is splashed in sterile white while the triggers and analogs are in regular black. The light bar is on a different position too, at each side of the touchpad, to give some extra vibrancy to the controller.
Before finalising the design and hardware of the DualSense, Sony built and tested several concepts and prototypes over the past few years and also asked several gamers to test the ergonomics of the new controller. Apart from making subtle upgrades to the grip and changing the angle of the trigger buttons, the new DualSense controllers are equipped with haptic feedback, which means that gamers would experience a variety of sensations coherent with the style of gameplay. For example, gamers would feel the grittiness of driving through mud or the impacts of ramming into another object or vehicle. The DualSense seems to build on the PS4’s DualShock 4, where gamers would feel the controller vibrating rigorously in situations like taking a penalty in Fifa games.
The aim of the creators is to make the gamers feel that they’re in the game and that they can physically feel the “tension of their actions, like drawing a bow to shoot an arrow,” which is why they’ve also incorporated adaptive triggers into the L2 and R2 buttons of the new DualSense.
We will probably interact with a controller which is a tad bit lighter than the current DualShock 4 – which is pretty light itself. Instead of a ‘Share’ button, DualSense will feature a mysterious “Create” button, the details of which are yet to be released. Although, Sony has mentioned that the features of the ‘Share’ button are not going to disappear. Just like us, it’s apparent that gamers and enthusiasts across the world cannot wait for the new PS5 to launch. When it does, we’re going to take one step towards the future of gaming, witnessing technology we could hardly conceive a decade ago.