Getting to grips with DualSense

Yes, some will dismiss it as nothing more than force feedback with bells on. But you only need look at the ecstatic response to Astro’s Playroom to see how many people have been bewitched by the DualSense’s haptic-feedback qualities. As a showcase for what the controller can do, it sets a daunting standard for other studios to live up to, however, and few other launch games come close: the combination of the controller’s speaker and haptics adds subtle differences to the likes of Dark Souls and Miles Morales, but neither game suffers significantly for their absence when you turn them off.

Yet the efforts of thirdparty studios suggest that it won’t just be future firstparty games that make meaningful use of the tech. The implementation in Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War might be mixed: added trigger resistance and feedback makes individual weapons more distinctive, though competitive players have complained it has a detrimental impact on responsiveness. But in

WRC 9’s PS5 update, it strengthens the connection between player, car and road, with the tension of brake and accelerator pedals clearly distinguished, and haptics that reflect different surfaces and even vehicular wear and tear. It’s not hard, then, to imagine how Gran Turismo 7 – not least given director Kazunori Yamauchi’s famous attention to detail – might take advantage. With indie game studios also hinting at the potential of DualSense, what could have been a flash in the pan promises to have a life far beyond the novelty factor.