Unlike ray tracing, which is about upping the visual fidelity of games, haptic feedback is about making them feel more natural. Think gentle rumbling when a train passes or varying trigger resistance to simulate drawing a bow.
What’s Haptic Feedback?
Haptic feedback is the technology that makes a device respond to a user’s touch. It uses actuators to create tactile sensations that simulate the feeling of touching something. It includes everything from a phone’s vibration when you long-press to the jolt when you shoot in-game guns and bows.
The haptics in the DualSense controller uses vibration motors that are more precise than the rumble feature in previous PlayStation gamepads. It allows developers to match vibration patterns with in-game scenarios, which adds more realism to virtual environments.
Some of the most common types of haptic feedback are fundamental vibrations, which provide simple alerts and notifications to users. Another is texture simulation, which can recreate various textures, like wood, plastic, and metal. Finally, force feedback provides resistance or pressure following a user’s input.
Haptic feedback is further with the DualSense controller by adding adaptive trigger support. With this feature’s help, developers can customize the feel of the left and right trigger buttons, simulating in-game actions such as drawing a bow to shoot an arrow or accelerating a dune buggy to drive through a sand pit.
It is one of the many features that make the PS5 controller the most advanced gaming device in its class. It will be interesting to see how gamers respond to this new level of immersion as games begin to take advantage of the technology.
How Does It Work?
Haptic feedback is an immersive technology that sends physical sensations to users in synchrony with what they see on-screen. It is a more advanced version of rumble, commonly used on mobile phones to confirm button presses.
As a result, the PlayStation 5 controller is capable of far more nuanced vibration responses than its predecessors. Players can feel the difference when using their guns in supported games.
These sensations are generated through dual actuators that replace traditional rumble motors. When paired with adaptive triggers, they create dynamic vibrations that simulate the feeling of different in-game actions. Players can turn this feature off from the settings menu on their PS5 console. Select the accessibility option and then the controllers. Here, there are options for vibration intensity ranging from strong to weak and, of course, the ability to turn off haptic feedback entirely.
This feature isn’t a given in every game, but many that support it have been designed with its implementation in mind. As a result, this is one of the few PlayStation 5 features that has been praised for its impact on the gaming experience.
What Games Can You Play With Haptic Feedback?
Haptic feedback is one of the most unique features. Sense control controllers help make games feel more realistic in a way that doesn’t rely on simple vibrations like rumble motors can do. It can convey different types of in-game objects, ranging from the pattering of rain to a gunshot’s recoil, in more nuanced ways than a traditional rumble pack could.
You can change your haptic feedback settings through the controller’s options menu in a game. It is accessible on the home screen by highlighting the icon that looks like a gear and pressing X or while playing a game to open the menu. From here, you can alter the intensity of haptic feedback (vital being the default) and adjust adaptive triggers and other options.
To test your game, you’ll want to load up a game that supports technology.
Unlike other visual enhancements that can be made with PS5 and Xbox Series X, haptic feedback is all about heightening immersion by offering immediate communication between the player and their environment. It’s the perfect complement to the graphical improvements offered by both consoles.
What Games Can You Play Without Haptic Feedback?
The haptic feedback and adaptive trigger features in the DualSense controller depend entirely on the games that support them. They need to be programmed into the games by the developers for them to work. It is because haptics is all about better simulating what it would feel like to interact with something in real life, and the vibrations that can be achieved are more specific than what you might get from a regular controller rumble feature.
It allows for more subtle and realistic sensations, from the flutter of raindrops to the shakiness of an explosion. This level of detail helps to increase the immersion that a gamer feels as they play, but it’s up to the games themselves to decide how much or how little to use this technology in their designs.
While some games have begun incorporating haptics into their design, it’s important to note that some games need to advance the features. Those that do, however, are making great use of it.
You can adjust your haptics settings from within the PlayStation console by going to settings and then navigating to accessibility. From there, you can change the vibration intensity and trigger effect intensity. Both are set to medium by default, but you can lower them to weak or turn them off entirely if you want to save some battery.