PlayStation 5 Gets New Controller Details, But Don't Call It DualShock 5 (Yet)

Following the first information shared about its next-generation console earlier this year, Sony has now officially announced the PlayStation 5 and confirmed it will be released by holiday 2020. As part of the rollout of new details, the company began explaining some of the PS5’s new hardware features, beginning with its controller, which is–at least at this stage–not yet called the DualShock 5, as you might expect.

In a blog post, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan detailed two key features making their debut on the new controller. The first is haptics instead of rumble, which Ryan says gives a “broader range of feedback.” You’ll feel different sensations from taking a tackle in Madden or running through a field, for example.

The second key new PS5 controller feature is adaptive triggers on L2/R2, which allows developers to customize the triggers’ resistance. Not to be confused with the trigger lock featured on something like the Xbox Elite controller, which reduce the amount the trigger needs to be pulled, this would instead allow a game to vary how difficult the trigger itself is to use. Ryan cites the example that you could feel the resistance of pulling back a bow string.

Ryan said that the haptics and adaptive triggers together “can produce a powerful experience that better simulates various actions,” and developers are already getting kits to start tinkering with the new tools.

Despite the new details, there’s one piece of information we don’t know yet: the name. In an interview with Wired, hardware architect Mark Cerny noted that the controller “doesn’t have a name yet.” History would suggest that it will be called the DualShock 5, but for the time being Sony isn’t committing to that name. When Sony first started talking about the PS5, the company said it didn’t have an official name yet either.