Sony unveils Project Leonardo Accessibility Controller for PS5: details

Project Leonardo, the latest accessibility controller kit for PS5, was announced at Sony’s presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2023. The company said at the event that it was working on a new controller designed to help gamers with disabilities play “easier, more comfortably and longer”. At the presentation, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan promised an out-of-the-box experience by providing a robust kit of customizable parts and a range of software options for the PS5. It is being developed with input from accessibility experts and organizations such as AbleGamers, SpecialEffect and Stack Up. There is currently no release window or pricing details for the PS5 codenamed Project Leonardo.

acc game stations officially blog entry, Project Leonardo was designed to address common challenges experienced by gamers with “limited motor control,” including difficulty holding a controller for long periods of time, finger positioning, and an inability to accurately press small buttons. This new kit brings all of those knobs onto two circular pads that lay flat – one representing each half of a standard PS5 DualSense Controller, with an extended range of pressure points. Sony describes the controller kit as a “gamer’s canvas” because it’s fully customizable to personal preference, with the package including a variety of analog stick caps (including one with a grippy texture) and buttons of various shapes and sizes. You could also adjust the distance between the stick and the gamepad.

Similar to PS5 forthcoming DualSense Edge Project Leonardo has a button mapping feature for controllers, including the ability to map multiple buttons to the same function. “Conversely, players can map two functions (like ‘R2’ + ‘L2’) to the same key,” she adds. Players can save their programmed button settings as profiles – up to three can be saved – for easy selection when switching between game types. For example, a first-person shooter may need lower camera sensitivity for accuracy as opposed to a third-person action game. So now you can just press the profile button and switch on the go instead of going into settings.

Project Leonardo can be used in pairs (as mentioned), standalone or connected to a PS5 DualSense controller to expand your canvas and meet specific gaming needs. Its four 3.5mm AUX ports help expand functionality and allow gamers to integrate external switches or third-party analog sticks – all of which can be dynamically connected/disconnected and assigned to buttons. “Because players can customize Project Leonardo to suit their needs, there is no ‘right’ form factor. We want to enable them to create their own configurations,” says Morimoto, Designer, Interactive entertainment from Sonysaid in the blog post.

Sony’s first-party games are already dominating the video game accessibility space by offering a robust suite of options to help people suffering from motor and visual issues. Both The Last of Us Part II and God of War Ragnarok were awarded in the category “Innovation in Accessibility”. The game prices 2020 or 2022.

Project Leonardo is currently under development with no details on a launch window or pricing.