Today in celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, PlayStation has today detailed more information about their accessibility controller for the PlayStation 5. Originally referred to as Project Leonardo and first announced at CES in early January, the controller is officially called “Access,” a controller specifically designed for players with various abilities.
The circular shaped controller was developed alongside accessibility experts for gamers with disabilities to enjoy all games more easily, and in longer play periods. The controller is customizable with swappable buttons to create custom fit layouts. As well, joy-cons and push buttons can be optimized for players with specific ranges of strength, motion and various physical needs. There’s various button caps suited to comfortability such as pillow button caps, flat button caps, wide flat which essentially cover two button caps, overhang button caps, and curved button caps. Each button cap can have an attached button cap icon input for easier mapping.
Along with using the device on a flat surface, players can attach it to an AMPS mount or tripod, and can orient the device 360 degrees. The joy-con attached to the Access controller can also be adjusted to various lengths. There’s also four 3.5mm AUX ports that can be directly plugged into the controller.
PlayStation Blog also included some images from the PlayStation 5 UI detailing how customization and mapping works. Players are given wide availability to custom fit the controller to their desired play style, from controller orientation, various mapping profiles, button assignments, and action buttons. Toggle mode option also allows players to adjust button behaviors, for example in a racing title a toggle input might automatically hold down the acceleration button, or hold caps lock when using the onscreen keyboard. Up to two Access controllers can be paired with the PlayStation 5, as well one Access and one DualSense Edge controller can also be paired— only up to two controllers can be paired at any given time on the PlayStation 5.
The inclusion of the Access controller for the PlayStation 5 is a huge step forward for gamers globally, for years some players with various abilities could not enjoy certain games due to the lack of accessible controller supports, often having to find difficult workarounds that did not best fit the console’s integration. In 2018 Xbox released their Xbox Adaptive Controller which was widely praised for giving players an assistive device into gaming, opening up new worlds of games for millions to experience. Numerous games from indie to AAA and in-between have also been at the forefront of integrating accessibility options in-game. Games like The Last of Us Part 1, God of War Ragnarok, Assassins Creed Valhalla, Hades, Celeste, and many more have helped gamers of all abilities better enjoy games as they were meant to be played.