PlayStation Announces New Accessibility Controller Kit For PS5

PlayStation has announced a customisable accessibility controller kit for the PlayStation 5.

Announced at CES today (January 5th), the controller kit – dubbed Project Leonardo – was developed with key contributions from accessibility experts, community members, and game developers, and was designed to “remove barriers to gaming” while helping “players with disabilities play more easily, more comfortable and for longer”.

According to a detailed PlayStation blog post, the controller works in tandem with third-party accessibility accessories and integrates with the PS5 console to “open up new ways of gaming”. It can be used as a standalone controller or with additional Project Leonardo or DualSense controllers.

It includes a kit of swappable components, including buttons in different shapes and sizes and analogue stick caps, which can be used to create numerous control layouts that works for players’ strength, physical needs, and range of motion.

Alongside the above, the controller will support button mapping, allowing you to map functions to single or multiple buttons, and it will support control profiles, storing programmed settings onto a profile with the ability to easily switch between them.

Project Leonardo is also compatible with third-party accessibility accessories via its four 3.5mm AUX ports, which can be configured to act like any other button.

PlayStation ended its detailed blog post by confirming that Project Leonardo is still in active development and is gathering valuable feedback from the community.

There has been no word on a targeted release date or price for the controller kit.