With under a month to go until the PlayStation 5 is out in the wild, Sony has finally shown-off the crisp new user interface players will be using going forward. Revealed during yet another State of Play showcase and further detailed on the PlayStation Blog, the new UI will replace the current layout which has long been criticised for being overly crowded and clunky. The new UI comes with dozens of quality-of-life improvements, “completely centred on the player – to provide you a truly next-generation experience with deeper immersion that quickly connects you to great games and a passionate gaming community”.
The updated UI will introduce a new Control Center “which enables you to discover new gameplay opportunities, go back to things you missed, jump directly into levels or challenges you want to play, and much more”. Via the Control Center, players will also gain access to the new Cards and Activities systems. At a click of a button, Cards will pop up at the bottom of the screen, allowing players to scroll through Activities, which will display mission progress, estimated time until quest completion and any other challenges that are near completion. As shown by Sid Shuman, Senior Director of Global Content Communications at Sony during a demo of Sackboy: A Big Adventure”. The super-fast SSD speeds of the PS5 mean you can instantly hop between partially completed missions with ease.
Alongside Activities, Cards can be used to see in-game help guides, view and share recently captured screenshots and video (now in 4K!), and communicate with buddies in an overhauled Party system. My favourite new feature shown during the showcase would have to be the picture-in-picture function that allows you to see what your friends are playing while you’re still in-game!
As a long-suffering user of the PlayStation user ecosystem, the changes are overdue but very much welcomed – though I will forever miss that dumb vertical keyboard.
The PlayStation 5 will launch in Australia on November 12.