The biggest thing that was promoted about the Playstation 5 in the run-up to its release was the console’s haptic system, specifically from its DualSense controller. Now, as Sony is wanting to put more third-party games on PS5, haptics are once again taking to the forefront in gaming.
Haptics are things that help to increase immersion in video games, such as the rumble pack, various sounds and noises, or how the controller works. Wind or voices may come from the DualSense’s speaker, triggers will be harder to pull to help with alternative firing modes, and, of course, the controller will rumble.
Playstation and Sony wanting more third-party games to make use of haptics is also intended to make sure that a lot of people consider the Playstation 5 version as the one to get for the increased sense of immersion that the console’s haptics cause.
So that’s thinking about it less around exclusivity than what kind of technologies could they adopt that really make PS5 sing. What kind of innovation can they apply with the haptics in the DualSense or the adaptive triggers? What could they do with 3D audio in the sound design of a game, etc? So there’s a lot of things we could do and then create marketing stories around, and that’s where some of these partnerships for multiplatform games really focus.
A big reason for why the Playstation 5 continues to beat out the Xbox Series X this generation despite the Xbox’s graphical power is due to Playstation exclusives being better. However, Sony claims that this time exclusivity isn’t the reason behind wanting more third-party games to come to the console.
More third-party games coming to the Playstation 5 might also mean that those developers can continue to push the technical limits of their games by looking at ways to make use of the console’s haptics, such as if there’s rain in the game, or it’s an open world with all sorts of noises, or has audio logs.
Various Triple-A first-party Playstation 5 titles like Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, God of War: Ragnarok, and more have all made use of the DualSense’s haptic feedback, so hopefully whatever third-party games the Playstation does gain from this are going to make use of it as well.
