The launch of Sony’s new PlayStation 5 is less than a month away, but gamers have patiently been waiting for more information about the console. Sony finally revealed details about backwards compatibility for older titles on PS5 last week, and on Thursday, Sony shared a walkthrough of the PlayStation 5 “user experience.”
In an 11-minute video, Sony’s Sid Shuman details several features of the PlayStation 5, including a revamped party system, a new store, and something called the “control center.” Here’s a full list of the features discussed in the video:
- The “look and feel” of the UI is designed for 4K TVs
- This is the PlayStation 5 home screen. Games and “media-related” apps will be separated on different panels, so you won’t have to scroll through a bunch of games to find the Hulu app, for example.
- This is the PlayStation Store. According to the video, the store is now “built into the system,” and is no longer a standalone app you need to launch.
- This is the “control center.” It’s what you’ll see when you tap the PlayStation button while in game.
- From the control center, you can access individual levels from certain games. The PS5 will also provide an estimate with how long the level will take to complete. You can jump into a given level on a case-by-case basis depending on the game. An example is shown, and it takes about three seconds for the level to load.
- From the same menu, you can review objectives within the level that you have yet to complete. If you’re a PlayStation Plus subscriber, there may be hints for each objective, which Sony calls “official game help.” You can then rearrange your screen to keep the hint visible while you play through the game. This could be extremely helpful for kids, or for players of all ages in very tough games like Demon’s Souls, if boss explanations are available.
- You can enter a voice chat without leaving the game. The days of waiting forever for the PlayStation party menu to load are over. The DualSense controller includes a built-in microphone you can use to chat. There is also a mute button on the controller.
- You can also opt into watching a friend’s shared screen without leaving your own game, and have the option of keeping it on your screen in a picture-in-picture mode. You can leave a little video box in one of the corners, or pin the broadcast to the side of your screen. It remains to be seen if you can pin other apps to the screen, which would allow you, for example, to have YouTube or Netflix running on the side while you play a game.
- If you have friends playing a different game that you own, you can immediately join their game from the menu. In the example, it took the player 10 seconds to switch from Sackboy: A Big Adventure and end up in the main menu of Destruction AllStars.
- You can dictate messages to people via the PS5 controller (or a headset) in “a number of languages.”
- The new PS5 interface for taking in-game screenshots makes it much easier to tell exactly what you’re capturing. You can take photos and record video in 4K on PS5.
- If you try to send a screenshot of a game that the developer considers a “spoiler,” you’ll get a warning before you send.
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