The PlayStation 5 is an impressive piece of hardware, but at first glance it might seem like it's not that substantial of an improvement over its predecessor. It's much quieter, and its load times are often substantially shorter than the PlayStation 4's, but it doesn't seem to take all that much of a leap forward in other areas - that is, until players spend some time with its controller. The PS5's controller, known officially as the DualSense, is so impressive that it has a chance to be one of the defining features of the console.
At first, the DualSense looks like only a moderate improvement over the PS4's controller. It's slightly larger, has an improved grip, and sports a sleek two-tone color pattern. Thanks to its excellent design, the controller feels fantastic in the player's hands right off the bat, but its real strengths aren't shown until booting up a game and seeing everything that it has going on under the hood. Many features of the PS5's DualSense, such as haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, have a chance to offer a true next-gen experience as developers become more comfortable with the technology.
While the DualSense's haptic feedback isn't a revolutionary concept on its own (it's very similar to the Nintendo Switch's HD rumble), the way it's already being implemented so well at such an early point in the console's lifecycle bodes well for the future. Astro's Playroom is the pack-in title for the PS5 and is used excellently to show off everything the controller has to offer. At one point during a level, rain starts to fall, and the controller's haptic feedback kicks in. The varied vibrations combined with the sound of raindrops pelting the ground coming from the DualSense's microphone truly allows the player to feel something similar to the sensation of rain falling all around them.
Astro's Playroom is filled with moments like these; steering the game's varied vehicles with motion control always feels fantastic, and shooting a bow and arrow feels remarkably realistic when the trigger adjusts the pressure felt to mimic the feeling of pulling a bowstring. There aren't a lot of native PS5 games out at the moment to take advantage of all these capabilities, but fortunately there's another example that also uses the controller to the best of its ability.
The DualSense Could Be A Defining Feature Of The PS5
Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered is the PS5 remaster of the Spider-Man game that released on PS4 in 2017. While Marvel's Spider-Man on the PlayStation 5 does have graphical improvements over the PS4 version, its enhancements from the DualSense are more notable. Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4 was hailed for its controls, and how good it felt to web-sling through the city and zip past buildings as Spider-Man. It was satisfying then, but with the DualSense it's on a different level now.
Thanks to the controller's haptic feedback, every single action that Spider-Man takes on the PS5 feels unique. Getting hit by different attacks affects the impact of the rumble the player feels, and each of Spider-Man's gadgets feel like they have their own unique weight behind them. The impact of the controller is felt even more in the adaptive triggers. Feeling just the slightest bit more resistance when using the right trigger to shoot out webs feels similar to how one would imagine pressing Spidey's web shooters would feel in real life, rather than just feeling like a simple button press. This, combined with the unique rumble associated with web shooting and the sound of webs zipping out of the controller's speaker, helps to created one of the most immersive superhero experiences possible.
None of the DualSense's features are overwhelming or hugely groundbreaking on their own, but when they're all combined they help create a control experience unlike anything before. If all of this can be said about two PS5 launch titles, then its exciting to think what developers will be able to do with the controller a few years down the road. The PlayStation 5 might struggle to stand out from its predecessor in some regards, but when it comes to its controller, it offers a next-gen experience like no other.