Venture Leonardo, PS5’s newest accessibility controller equipment, has been introduced at Sony’s Client Electronics Present (CES) 2023 presentation. The corporate shared on the occasion that it was engaged on a brand new controller, designed to assist gamers with disabilities play “simply, extra comfortably, and for longer durations.” On the presentation, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan promised an out-of-the-box expertise, offering a strong equipment of customisable elements and a spread of software program choices on the PS5. It’s being developed with contributions from accessibility specialists and organisations corresponding to AbleGamers, SpecialEffect and Stack Up. At the moment, there isn’t a launch window or pricing particulars for PS5’s codename Venture Leonardo.

As per PlayStation’s official weblog submit, Venture Leonardo is constructed to deal with widespread challenges confronted by gamers with “restricted motor management,” which incorporates difficulties in holding a controller for lengthy durations, finger positioning, and being unable to precisely press small-sized buttons. This new equipment places all these buttons onto two round pads which lie flat — one representing every half of an ordinary PS5 DualSense controller, with an expanded space of strain factors. Sony describes the controller equipment as a “canvas for avid gamers” because it’s absolutely customisable to private preferences, with the package deal together with a wide range of analogue stick caps (one with grippy texture as nicely) and buttons of various styles and sizes. Moreover, one might additionally regulate the space of the stick from the gamepad.

Much like the PS5’s upcoming DualSense Edge controllers, Venture Leonardo comes with a button mapping characteristic, together with the flexibility to map a number of buttons to the identical operate. “Conversely, gamers can map two capabilities (like ‘R2′ + ‘L2′) onto the identical button,” it provides. Gamers can retailer their programmed button settings as profiles — as much as three could be saved — for straightforward choice when switching between recreation sorts. For example, a first-person shooter may require a decrease digital camera sensitivity for accuracy, not like a third-person motion recreation. So now, you’ll be able to merely press the profile button and swap on the go as an alternative of heading into settings.

Venture Leonardo can be utilized in pairs (as said earlier than), standalone, or related to a PS5 DualSense controller to increase your canvas and match explicit gaming wants. Its 4 3.5mm AUX ports assist increase the performance, permitting gamers to combine exterior switches or third-party analogue sticks — all of which could be dynamically related/ disconnected and button mapped. “As a result of gamers can customise Venture Leonardo in response to their wants, there isn’t a one ‘proper’ kind issue. We need to empower them to create their very own configurations,” So Morimoto, Designer, Sony Interactive Leisure, stated within the weblog submit.

Sony’s first-party video games already dominate the online game accessibility area, by providing a strong suite of choices to assist these affected by motor and visible challenges. Each The Final of Us Half II and God of Warfare Ragnarök have been awarded within the ‘Innovation in Accessibility’ class at The Recreation Awards 2020 and 2022, respectively.

Venture Leonardo is at present in growth, with no phrase on a launch window or pricing.