Sony has refuted a new Bloomberg report claiming that the tech giant has halved its forecast for PlayStation VR2 launch quarter shipments.
In a statement to GamesIndustry.biz, PlayStation said it has “not cut PlayStation VR2 production numbers” and it’s “seeing enthusiasm from PlayStation fans for the upcoming launch, which includes more than 30 titles such as Gran Turismo 7, Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Resident Evil Village.”
This comes after a January 30th Bloomberg report in which the publication said that disappointing pre-orders had led Sony to adjust its original forecast of two million to one million headsets shipped.
On top of VR already being a more niche market, Bloomberg noted that the PS VR2’s steep price tag — $750 in Canada, more than a PS5 — was seen as a key reason behind the supposed underperformance. For context, the PS5, for which the PS VR2 is an accessory, starts at $519 in Canada. The lack of backwards compatibility with the original PS VR may also deter some from buying the new headset.
Of course, Sony wouldn’t admit one way or the other whether pre-orders have been soft, so it remains to be seen how the PS VR2 will fare. For what it’s worth, we recently got to go hands-on with the PS VR2 and came away very impressed. Check out our full preview here.
The PS VR2 will launch in Canada on February 22nd.
“To all our fans: thank you for your patience as we navigated unprecedented demand for the PS5 console amid global challenges,” wrote the company on its blog. “If you’re looking to purchase a PS5 console, you should now have a much easier time finding one at retailers globally.”
Worldwide chip shortages coupled with strong demand made the PS5 difficult to purchase for many months following its November 2020 launch. These supply constraints affected not only production of the PS5, but also the manufacturing of Xbox Series X/S, smartphones, cars and more.
It should be noted that many markets, including the U.S. and U.K., Sony has a dedicated ‘PlayStation Direct’ website through which people can purchase the PS5. However, this site doesn’t service Canada, so you’ll have to check retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop and Walmart if interested.
Elsewhere in the blog post, PlayStation detailed a new live-action PS5 ad campaign called “Live from PS5.” In it, PS5 games are seen in the real world through the lens of fictional news broadcasts. In one clip, Peter Parker and Miles Morales can be seen swinging through New York (Marvel’s Spider-Man2), while another shows giant ‘Eikon’ creatures fighting in Japan (Final Fantasy XVI).
With the PS5’s added momentum and this new marketing campaign, it remains when PlayStation will hold another actual games showcase. Its last ‘State of Play’ event was in September and offered the last big look at God of War Ragnarökprior to its release. Currently, all eyes are on the aforementioned Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which is confirmed to release in the fall, although actual gameplay has yet to be revealed. That said, PlayStation also has the PS VR2 coming on February 22nd.
As someone whose primary gaming platform is PlayStation, I’ve long wanted the Japanese gaming giant to come out with its own version of Xbox’s well-received Elite Controller.
Sure, there’s been third-party offerings from the likes of Scuf, but an official first-party product is naturally more exciting. Now, PlayStation has finally answered the call with the DualSense Edge, a highly customizable expansion of the PS5’s standard gamepad. Truthfully, I was hard on the controller when it was originally revealed due to its whopping $270 price tag.
But I have to say that while it’s still undeniably expensive, I’m quite impressed with the gamepad now that I’ve spent a couple of days with it. Of course, that’s not enough time for this to be a proper review, but for now, here are my initial, largely positive impressions.
Look and feel
While I initially thought that the Edge so closely resembling the regular DualSense was a little boring, the aesthetic has certainly grown on me. For one, it creates a sense of visual unity between the white-and-black PS5 console, controller and other accessories. More importantly, it helps accentuate the subtle iterations that PlayStation has made.
This includes rubberized inside grips and texturized little grooves on the L2/R2 buttons, both of which add a welcome level of comfort. There’s also an undeniable charm in seeing PlayStation’s iconic Square, Circle, Triangle and Cross buttons patterned across the touchpad and L2/R2.
Parts
And that’s just what’s there at default. Of course, the core appeal of these “pro-style” controllers is the fact that they are modular. In that regard, the breadth of options with the DualSense Edge really is exceptional.
For context, here’s everything you get with the controller:
Carrying case
Connector housing
USB braided cable
Two standard caps
Two high dome caps
Two low dome caps
Two half dome back buttons
Two lever back buttons
In terms of the packed-in physical components, my favourite, by far, is swappable analog stick caps. The default “low domes” are identical to the DualSense’s flat, slightly indented sticks, which were themselves based on the PS4’s DualShock 4. But you can instead replace them with mushroom-esque “high dome” caps which stick upward. In practice, they’re much like the curved thumbsticks of the PS1-3 DualShock controllers, creating a sense of nostalgia that also just feels satisfyingly smooth on my fingers. Best of all, the caps can be easily removed and swapped using just your fingers, so you can always go back and forth to see what you prefer. PlayStation is also selling separate $25 replacement stick modules — a surprisingly affordable solution should you run into issues down the line.
That’s to say nothing of the back attachments. Like the Xbox Elite Controller, you can opt to equip your DualSense Edge with rear paddles, which PlayStation refers to as ‘lever types.’ These are great because you can bind inputs to them for your middle fingers to handle that would otherwise require your thumbs. But the DualSense expands on this concept with a second type of rear attachment, which it calls ‘half dome’ buttons. These little ovular, pill-shaped attachments go in the same slot but otherwise function the same. Once again, it’s really up to preference. Personally, I liked the half dome variants because they’re smaller and, therefore, less intrusive than the longer paddles. This means that they also require more pressure and you’re less likely to accidentally graze them as you might with the paddles — a nice option for people with fatter fingers like me. At the same time, I found having two both middle fingers higher up on the rear to be a bit awkward, so I later swapped one of the domes for a peddle so I could more naturally reach it.
Then there are the trigger stops, a pair of sliders beside the L2/R2 buttons that limit how far the triggers can be pressed. There are three options — full, limited and very limited travel distance. Naturally, the less travel distance you have, the quicker response time when pulling the triggers. These precious milliseconds are most tangible in shooters, where you want aiming and firing to feel as snappy as possible. It’s not something that will single-handedly make you a Call of Duty pro, but that added responsiveness nonetheless makes a pleasing and tangible difference over time. Keep in mind, however, that using the stops will disable the DualSense’s unique adaptive trigger functionality. You’ll also want to consider that games that require a full press of the trigger (i.e. racing games like Gran Turismo 7).
Software
Perhaps the best aspect of the DualSense Edge is just how seamlessly it integrates into the PS5’s ecosystem. As soon as you plug it into your console via USB-C, you’re given a brief-yet-useful overview of the controller. You can also scan a QR code in the surprisingly sturdy carrying case to instantly jump to a series of handy in-depth PlayStation Support videos on individual aspects of the Edge. This makes the whole setup process feel extremely smooth.
It doesn’t stop there. Directly beneath either thumbstick are two ‘Function’ buttons. At any point, you can hold these down to bring up a quick menu related to Profiles. These are sets of button configurations that you can fine-tune to your liking, and you can create as many as you want. In other words, you can absolutely have game-specific Profiles. Four Profiles can then be assigned to face button shortcuts when you press down Function. And because the Function button itself is a shortcut to Profiles, you graciously don’t have navigate to Settings > Accessories > DualSense Edge each time.
Honestly, being able to easily customize and swap between button layouts on the fly was probably the biggest highlight of the total experience. That’s because I underestimated just how much I’d end up loving the ability to play around with controls. For example, I set the D-pad’s Up button to the back-left dome for Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0. This meant that I could simply use my otherwise idle middle finger to ping waypoints and enemies for my teammates, thus freeing up my thumb to focus on actual movement. Likewise, I set the other dome for X so I could jump and clamber more easily and have that thumb prioritize camera rotation. On the flip side, Fortnitehas such colourful taunts that I wanted to switch from D-pad Up to Down to quickly get my groove on. Players who prioritize inventory checking, however, might want to leave it on D-pad Up or go Right (Augments) or Left (ping).
Admittedly, though, I’m predominantly someone who enjoys single-player experiences, so I didn’t get nearly as much mileage out of this as others would. Much to my pleasant surprise, then, when I started digging into all of the ways I could tailor Profiles to benefit my offline gaming. Take Uncharted 4: I’ve always found that game’s binding of reload to Triangle to be a bit clunky. With the Edge, though, I can simply assign that to a rear button. Beauty. I then decided to set the other dome to Square, which swaps weapons while aiming, to allow me to more quickly toggle guns while maintaining consistent fire. This was especially handy in firefights where I was spraying a nearby enemy with a rifle then swapping to my pistol to send off more precise single shots. In a similar vein, I appreciated the convenience this had in one of my favourite games, Final Fantasy VII Remake. Here, I could set one dome/paddle to Circle to dodge roll more easily and the other to D-pad Up/Down to quickly swap between characters (essential for the quick on-the-fly reactions that game requires).
But I think the biggest benefit came with Resident Evil 4. I’ve been revisiting the Capcom classic ahead of March’s remake, although it’s admittedly taken some getting readjustment. After all, I’m going back to tank controls after the modern controls of games like Resident Evil 2and Village. This means that you can’t aim and move or even fully rotate the camera (the right analog stick only partially looks in that direction). And because X is the sprint button, you can’t properly run and rotate the camera. Thankfully, the Edge can simply bind X to a rear dome/paddle, freeing up my thumb to rotate the camera while Leon runs forward. That situational awareness is especially helpful when fighting large groups of enemies.
Of course, these are but a few use cases. All in all, the interchangeability between button and rear attachment configurations was staggering, and I loved discovering — and constantly tweaking — my preferred set-ups per game. Throw in such additional customization options as stick sensitivity and stick and trigger deadzones (the input range that isn’t registered) and you really can get a lot out of the Edge.
That battery, though
…Except, perhaps, battery life. Indeed, one of the main issues with the DualSense Edge is it simply doesn’t last for too long. Reports vary depending on exactly how you’re using the Edge, but generally, it seems to last for anywhere between four and eight hours. (Sony hasn’t released an official battery life estimate.) In my experience, I got closer to six hours, although I was primarily playing games that didn’t take advantage of adaptive triggers — or even other draining features like the microphone and speaker — to begin with. Last year, Sony told The Vergethe reduced battery life is due to the Edge’s “many more features” over the roughly 12-hours-long standard DualSense, but it’s still frustrating.
Early verdict
Once again, I haven’t spent that much time with the DualSense Edge, so I don’t have a fully-formed take on it. Further, it remains to be seen whether people will run into any issues in the weeks ahead. I immediately think of the several broken Xbox Elite Controllers that our editor-in-chief, Patrick O’Rourke, has gone through. Could the Edge suffer from similar build quality issues? Only time will tell. Then there’s the matter of the steep price tag, which is more than half the cost of the $520 PS5 Digital Edition itself. Frankly, it’s difficult to wrap my head around such a price for a controller.
Therefore, I can’t really tell you if it’s “worth” spending $270 on it. What I can say, though, is that those who regularly play on PS5 will undoubtedly get a lot out of this gamepad, thanks to its sleek and comfortable form factor, solid lineup of swappable buttons and robust in-game customization options. If you’re part of the PlayStation faithful and any of that sounds appealing to you, the DualSense Edge would be a fine addition to your collection.
Every month, PlayStation offers a handful of games at no additional cost to its PlayStation Plus subscribers.
Now, the company has revealed the trio of titles hitting PlayStation Plus Essential in January 2023. (PlayStation will announce January’s PS Plus Extra and Premium games in the coming days.)
This month’s highlight is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Respawn’s 2019 Souls-like action-adventure game, which is free on both PS4 and PS5. The sequel, Jedi: Survivor, will release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC on March 17th, 2023.
January’s other two free PS Plus games are the platformer Axiom Verge 2 (PS4/PS5) and online action-RPG Fallout 76 (PS4).
All three games will be free through PS Plus starting January 3rd. Meanwhile, December’s free PS Plus Essential games will remain available until January 2nd.
It’s not common knowledge, but nearly every component featured in Apple’s iPhone isn’t created by the company, with its powerful processors being one of the few notable exceptions.
In an uncharacteristic move, Apple CEO Tim Cook was recently upfront about the company’s long-standing partnership with Sony regarding camera sensors.
In a tweet sent during Cook’s recent tour of Sony’s Kumamoto, Japan facility, Apple’s CEO thanked Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida for showing him around the lab.
We’ve been partnering with Sony for over a decade to create the world’s leading camera sensors for iPhone. Thanks to Ken and everyone on the team for showing me around the cutting-edge facility in Kumamoto today. pic.twitter.com/462SEkUbhi
For years it’s been believed that Apple featured Sony sensors in its smartphones’ cameras. Several iFixitteardowns over the years have confirmed this, right down to the specific image sensor created by Sony. However, this is the first instance Apple has publically confirmed that it has used Sony’s sensors in its iPhone cameras for the past 10 years.
It’s likely that if Cook is touring Sony’s camera facility, the two tech giants’ partnership isn’t dissolving anytime soon. According to Nikkei Asia, Sony’s upcoming image sensor can capture more light by doubling each pixel’s saturation signal level while balancing overexposure and underexposure better.
The holidays are drawing near, and many of us are scrambling to find those perfect gifts. Luckily, MobileSyrup is here with another annual gift guide for great Android accessories. 2022 saw the release of some very top-notch Android phones. With them, a new lineup of phenomenal devices is used to support the device, and the user is available.
We’ve ventured into every corner of the internet to find the best Android accessories, perfect for gifting. Whether you’re looking for a more extravagant gift for under the tree, a stocking stuffer, or otherwise, we have you covered.
From chargers to mobile game controllers, headphones, and more, here is your Android accessory gift guide for 2022.
Samsung Galaxy SmartTag+
The Galaxy SmartTag+ is Samsung’s compact tracking device that can be attached to everyday items. We’ve all misplaced something, whether it’s a wallet, a set of keys, etc. The Galaxy SmartTag+ can be attached and located by using Bluetooth LE on a smartphone. Ultra-wideband technology helps users pinpoint the location of misplaced objects.
Even if an item is out of range, users can use the SmartThings Find Network on their Galaxy phone to pinpoint where they’ve lost their item. Galaxy SmartTag+ is compatible with most contemporary Galaxy phones, including the Galaxy S22 series, Galaxy S21 Plus, Galaxy S21 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Fold 4.
Razer Kishi V2 Mobile Gaming Controller for Android
With cloud gaming technology really taking off, there’s no better time to gift a mobile gaming controller. The Razer Kishi V2 gives a console-like experience when controlling your favourite games on an Android device. This mobile controller pairs well when using services like Xbox Cloud Gaming, NVIDIA GeForce Now, etc.
The Razer Kishi V2 mimics the control layout of the Xbox Wireless controller with an asymmetrical thumbstick layout. Face buttons and a D-pad are present. Additionally, the controller supports triggers and shoulder bumpers. The controller also offers full integration with the Razer Nexus App, which consolidates all compatible games.
This year, Google launched its Pixel Buds Pro earbuds. The premium audio buds from the Pixel maker have gained a lot of critical approval. The Pixel Buds Pro integrates Active Noise Cancellation technology with its Silent Seal. This ensures a tighter yet comfortable fit in the user’s ear, drowning out the organic sounds of everyday life. Plus, a transparency mode can be activated if the wearer wants to hear their surroundings.
Pixel Buds Pro also supports custom 11mm speaker drivers, Volume EQ, and offers up to 11 hours of audio playback on a single charge. Though, up to 31 hours can be gained thanks to the charging case. The earbuds also feature respond-to-text commands, hands-free control of music, and more.
We can’t forget about over-the-ear headphones. A pair that stand out are the Sony WH-1000XM4 wireless headphones. Built with integrated noise-cancelling support, Sony utilizes Dual Noise Sensor technology to suppress distracting noises surrounding the user.
Sony Music Studios Tokyo helped co-develop the headphones’ Edge-AI, which upscales compressed digital files in real-time. In addition, Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones support speak-to-chat functionality, stopping music automatically when speaking. This enables users to continue wearing the headphones without impacting a conversation. Sony also promises up to 30 hours of playback on a charge. 10 minutes of quick charging can equate to five hours of playback.
Belkin’s Quick Charge Wireless Charging Stand is a compact charging stand, offering up to 15W of power. The charger is compatible with any Qi-certified device. This means the Belkin charger works with Samsung Galaxy phones, Pixel devices, and many more. Additionally, smartwatches can also make use of the charger.
On the front of the charger is a small LED light that indicates the device’s charging status. It can charge a phone no matter the orientation, whether it’s placed vertically or horizontally. It’s also compact enough that it can be placed on a desk, side table, or shelf.
Pivoting from headsets to speakers, Anker’s Soundcore is a great gifting option. It’s fairly compact, making it a great travel companion. It’s able to provide deep bass levels with clarity and low distortion. This is thanks to two high-sensitivity drivers. The speaker can withstand drops and has a waterproof rating of IPX5.
Pairing via Bluetooth 5.0, users can connect their Android device to the speaker and play their favourite tracks. Anker ensures that connectivity is maintained in up to 66ft distances. Plus, the Soundcore speaker offers up to 24 hours of audio playback on a single charge.
For those that prefer a hardwired charging experience, Power-7 has an efficient set of wall charging units. This pack comes with two USB-C cables and fast-charging wall blocks. The charging cables are compatible with any USB-C device, including Samsung Galaxy S22 series, S21, and models since the S8. Pixel devices are also supported alongside LG, Moto, and other brands.
Power-7 claims that devices can charge from zero percent to 60 in only 40 minutes. The USB-C cords are designed with an aluminum housing and nylon braided design. This typically helps avoid faster wear and tear of silicon cables and other products experience. Finally, the chargers ensure protection from over-current, over-voltage, over-heat and short-circuit issues.
Gikwbc Power Bank 38800mAh LCD Display Portable Charger
Of course, we can’t forget about the on-the-go charging solutions. The Gikwbc Power Bank is very slick and compact. It supports charging with four USB output ports and Dual USB-C inputs. Once again, this charger is comparable with Galaxy phones, Pixel, LG, and other Android devices.
What notably stands out is the inclusion of the small LED screen. This helps the user track the charging status of their device. It’s a rather novel addition that sets it apart from other portable chargers on the market. Gikwbc also provides a three-year warranty for the power bank.
A perfect accessory for a stocking stuffer is a USB-C cable. There’s always a use for one, and it’s a cost-effective gift to give. The Amazon Basics USB-C to USB-A 2.0 cable is compatible with a large array of Android phones and devices. It has a power output of up to 15W. Plus, transfer speeds clock in at 480Mbps.
For content creators, photo nuts, or travellers, this stabilizer tripod can be a perfect gift. This stabilizing rig can help improve videos captured using its anti-shake structure. The tripod offers a three-axis stabilizer and can support even larger phones at high and low angles.
The tripod utilizes an easy-to-use adjustment wheel to adjust the parameter value in both selfie and standard shooting modes. Thanks to its onboard buttons, users can swap modes, use its fill light controls, and access the joystick for more controls while filming and taking photos. The tripod offers up to 25 hours of battery life and only requires two hours to charge.
It’s not an Android accessory gift guide without a nod to the PopSocket. We’ve all seen them and likely know their benefits. For the uninitiated, PopSockets have become a go-to for those that want a one-handed smartphone experience. Users simply apply the PopSocket to the back of their phone using the adhesive socket and reposition as needed.
PopSockets enable users to hold larger phones with one hand without straining their wrists as much. PopSockets can also prop a phone up like a stand when watching videos. When not in use, users can press down on the PopSocket to have it flat against the phone and/or its case.
MobileSyrup utilizes affiliate partnerships. These partnerships do not influence our editorial content, though MobileSyrup may earn a commission on purchases made via these links that helps fund the journalism provided free on our website.
It’s no secret that this current console generation has progressed rather slowly.
After more than two years, the majority of games are still cross-gen, with only a few others exclusive to the latest hardware. For that reason alone, I’ve had my eye on Square Enix’s Forspoken, as it’s being made solely for PS5 and PC. Further fuelling my interest is the fact that the game comes from developer Luminous Productions, a team made up of many Final Fantasy XV alums, the most recent numbered entry in my all-time favourite series. The central mix of magic-infused combat and parkour certainly didn’t hurt, either.
Now, after having played three hours of the open-world action-RPG, I have to say that I’ve come away largely impressed. Here’s why.
A lot more than a meme
My demo began in Chapter 2 as our protagonist, Frey Holland (Ella Balinska from Netflix’s Resident Evil), finds herself transported to a mysterious castle in the fantastic land of Athia. As evidenced by her plaid shirt and jeans, she doesn’t actually belong here; she’s a New Yorker. She then discovers a talking bangle on her wrist, which she quickly dubs “Cuff,” and ventures out to find a way home.
Now, before I go any further, I have to address the elephant in the room: Forspoken‘s dialogue. Earlier this year, one viral piece of marketing, in which Frey recaps all of her new outlandish abilities, was heavily criticized for being fast-talking, expository and unnatural. This led people to grow concerned about how grating the rest of the game could be. Luminous developers later responded by saying that these soundbites were taken out of context.
After seeing the full scene in action myself, I’m actually inclined to agree with the team. Several of those lines came early in my demo, after a fight in which Frey discovers her first magical powers, the ability to shoot rocks. With these new abilities, she makes quick work of a pack of wolf-like enemies, leading her to become overwhelmed with emotion — hence, the flurry of “wow, I just did that!”-style lines.
Is this “cringeworthy” like many have said? Sure, but I’d argue it’s cringeworthy in a way that’s reasonably believable and human. I could certainly see this girl, who very clearly has some sort of chip on her shoulder, feeling abundantly confident upon discovering she can fight off monsters with magical powers. It’s that momentary feeling of being on top of the world — invincible, even — that many youth fall prey to.
“Context is really that key thing. We’ve created what we believe is a very original character, a very fresh-feeling character, who is very complex and has so many different sides to her. She’s determined, she’s got a great sense of humour, but she’s also got a soft, kind of vulnerable side as well. And it’s hard to convey all that as a new IP, without any kind of past knowledge of the title or the story and try to introduce this new character out into the world,” says Raio Mitsuno, creative producer on Forspoken.
“It’s been a little bit of a challenge, because we don’t want to give away the story. We want to make sure that’s intact for players when they get to play the game. So we’ve been selective about what we show […] There’s a lot more to the character. She’s a character we could all go for. I think everyone’s going to feel a connection to her, and you’ll see her go through so many things. And I think she’s a character that a lot of people are going to fall in love with.”
Another side of this scene that was left out of the trailers is Cuff, who’s trying to keep Frey’s briefly inflated ego in check. In this way, I found myself quickly taking a liking to the sentient bracelet. With his soothing English tones, he initially seems like Iron Man’s AI J.A.R.V.I.S., but that betrays his decidedly droll and deprecating personality. This creates a humourous and engaging buddy cop-esque rapport between the two unwitting allies. Some of the barks during combat even elicited a chuckle, like Cuff asking the player to avoid getting hit again and Frey telling him to “shut the **** up” with a surprising bluntness.
“[Cuff] is partly a narrative tool to allow her to get a sense of the world and act as a guide, so to speak, but also be useful in battle and exploration. And the other idea with Cuff is, instead of just making it a useful tool, we wanted to give it a character and make it a personality on its own that can match the screen presence of Frey, even though it’s just a voice. Once we found [Balinska], who was perfect for the role, we wanted to find a personality that could create that great chemistry with Frey and have those kind of back-and-forth conversations,” says Mitsuno. “Their relationship is at the core of the story, too. As much as it is Frey’s journey, he’s there every step of the way, and you see their relationship go through these many changes as well. It’s very essential to the overall experience.”
It’s also clear that Luminous is looking to build up intrigue by leaving elements of Frey’s backstory a mystery, considering the demo began after the introductory New York chapter. As I played, there were certainly some hints sprinkled throughout; in one instance, she hints at having a complicated relationship with her father, and even when she’s sent through the portal to Athia, a sign that says “Holland Tunnel” can be seen behind her, suggesting she comes from some sort of wealth or influence. Seeing these seeds planted during my demo has me interested to find out where things go, especially since I’m a sucker for “daddy issues” stories.
According to Mitsuno, it’s the pursuit of such deeper character beats that resulted in Luminous tapping a Western writing team that consists of the likes of Uncharted creator Amy Hennig, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story co-writer Gary Whitta and Shadowhunters writer Allison Rymer.
“We’ve developed Final Fantasy games with these big, giant stories, but what they really excel at, what they really brought to Forspoken, is this micro level of looking at the human aspect of the story. Like, what Frey goes through and the relationships that she forms and how it all basically contributes to her growth and the trajectory that she goes on during this journey. So that was what we thought was really nice — that they were able to bring this really human element to the story.”
Not all of the story material has worked for me so far, though. For instance, Frey’s anger over the Chapter 3 death of a little girl named Olevia at the hands of one of the game’s villains, Tanta Sila, didn’t land quite as hard as it should given the relatively brief time they spend together. But in general, I like Frey and Cuff so far, and I enjoyed unpacking more of the game’s lore, which includes how the world and once-benevolent Tanta matriarchs have become corrupted by a mysterious force that Frey dubs the “Break.” It’s certainly not nearly as well-written as, say, Final Fantasy XIV or Final Fantasy VII Remake, but it’s still much more promising than trailers would lead you to believe, and I’m looking forward to seeing more.
Quite the magical gameplay experience
With all of the story talk out of the way, I’ll get into what was easily the highlight of my time with Forspoken: the gameplay. Simply put, it’s some of the most fun I’ve had with combat and traversal systems in a while.
On a base level, the game just benefits from an unparalleled sense of flashiness that’s afforded by the PS5. Put another way: if Final Fantasy XV was awe-inspiring for the scale of its massive summons that strike the battlefield with earth-shattering, terrain-altering magic, then Forspoken takes that several steps further by letting you be such a force of nature yourself. And because of the added graphical power of the PS5, Forspoken has some of the most impressive display of particle effects and colourful environmental effects I’ve ever seen. From the way Frey’s vines smash out of the ground and spray debris everywhere to how she sears the ground with magmatic sparks, I was constantly marvelling at the visual splendour. It becomes quickly apparent how the game is benefiting from being current-gen-only, and that’s before you factor in the practically instantaneous fast-travel — the quickest I’ve ever seen in a console game.
“We felt that designing this new IP for the PS5, which is new hardware, was really an ideal opportunity to really showcase what the game can do with the high-speed SSD and adaptive triggers,” says Takeshi Aramaki, Forspoken co-director and head of Luminous. “These are all features that we’re really able to show off because we’re able to develop for the PS5, and the magic parkour and traversal and all of that high intensity, high-speed, is possible because of the PlayStation 5. So we really wanted to deliver a brand new game experience to new players.”
Spectacle aside, though, Frey’s moveset is just remarkably varied. Even when you first start off, her rock powers offer a surprising amount of versatility. For example, her standard Burst Shot fires clusters of rocks at the enemy, and you can charge this up to hurl a larger projectile. Initially, this starts as a small clump of earth, but I was pleased to see that upgrading this ability turned it into a sizeable boulder. These heavy-hitting attacks nicely contrast the Scatter Shot, in which Frey holds out her fingers, Emperor Palpatine-style, to pepper enemies with smaller debris before launching a big cluster, and the Shield Shot, which gives you a defensive rocky wall that you can charge up to then explode into smaller particles. It’s a rather ingenious system that keeps combat more manageable and less input-heavy than some other action games while still affording you a good amount of options.
Support abilities can also help turn the tides of battle. These include vines that can ensnare enemies and leave them open for follow-up attacks, a Venus Flytrap-esque plant that can whittle away at enemies on its own and a plantlike whip that can sap enemy health to replenish your own. And if that weren’t enough, large area of effect supermoves called ‘Surges’ are available once you fill up a metre by using attack and support abilities. Being able to summon hordes of thorny branches to skewer my enemies with the ‘Genesis’ Surge never got old during my demo.
“Since this is an action game, first and foremost, we wanted to make sure to maintain this balance of distance between the players and the different magic that they were using,” explains Takefumi Terada, co-director of Forspoken. “For example, at the start of the game, there’s a lot of mid-range magic that’s available to players and then as you progress in the game, there’s fire-based magic that’s more closer-range, and then later on there’s more water-based magic, which is like a further-range magic spell. So we were very conscious of making the distance between the player and then the battles and then we created four schools of magic as a basis.”
Indeed, my only real gripe with the combat early on was that Frey felt like she was lacking a melee option, and as Terada promised, one came towards the end of my demo. After beating Tanta Sila, Frey is able to absorb her powers, adding the villain’s sword-based fire attacks to her arsenal. Since I wasn’t allowed to go past this point, Square Enix instead booted up a different, more curated demo — the one that was just dropped for free onto the PlayStation Store — in which I could sample Sila’s abilities. Immediately, I fell in love with these moves. Besides a flaming sword always being inherently cool, it just felt gratifying to use, with Frey whirling around with delightful Devil May Cry-esque flair.
Complementing these close-range moves are Sila’s even more impressive Support abilities, which offer all sorts of crowd control benefits. My favourite, by far, was Crucible, in which Frey conjures up a giant wall of fire around her to entrap her foes; it felt like the ultimate power fantasy. But the other fire Support moves were well-worth using, too, like Bombardier, which sees Frey punt an enemy and cause a fiery explosion, or Legion, which calls forth enflamed zombie allies. The spectacle and utility of these moves is remarkable, and it made me feel like an absolute badass. In some ways, it’s the Dr. Strange game I’d always hoped for.
Altogether, Luminous says there are around 100 spells that Frey can use, including electric and water powers I didn’t get to play around with, and the thought of uncovering them all in the final game is quite tantalizing.
“This is really also well-suited to the open-world environment that players are placed in. Since it’s such a huge world with many different corners, there’s different areas where there’s magic that’s more in line with searching for things and then other parts where there’s magic that deals a lot of damage in combat,” adds Terada. “And since Athia has so many different areas, and there’s so many different magic spells that come out of that you can use, so this is very suited for just having a variety of 100 different spells that you can use, because the world is so large.”
I didn’t get too much of a bearing on how the new types of magic that Frey learns will actually help with traversal, but even at the start, her magical parkour is extremely fluid and satisfying. Her base movement ability, Flow, lets her run at high-speeds while vaulting over low objects in oh-so stylish twirls and tumbles. (Flow also allows for equally graceful dodges in combat.) Frey can also bound up walls with timed jumps to gain some verticality, which is essential in Athia’s often mountainous terrain. With so many open-world games relying on vehicles or even horses to get around, it’s refreshing to have this unique spin on parkour at the heart of Forspoken.
It feels appropriately paced, too, as Flow has a stamina metre that quickly replenishes. On-the-fly management of your stamina, including using abilities to instantly top it up at key moments, helps maintain a thrilling sense of momentum during traversal. Luminous has also teased several ways in which the parkour will only continue to expand, like a fire-based whip to pull Frey to new heights or a surfboard to glide along bodies of water. It’s easy to imagine how all of these could be used in conjunction to make zipping around the map feel immensely engaging and even rewarding.
I do, however, have some concerns with the open-world itself. It’s definitely pretty, like the rest of the game, and it’s got an old European-inspired vibe that feels lovingly reminiscent at times of classic Final Fantasy games. But it also feels a little barren at times, with NPCs seemingly relegated to cities, while the icon-filled map that includes timed challenges, stat-increasing landmarks and photo snapping missions feels a bit like a relic from the last console generation. Admittedly, my demo was primarily focused on going through story missions, so it’s certainly possible I’ll come to appreciate all of this more. For now, though, I have some reservations.
Just give it a chance!
After my extensive hands-on with Forspoken, I honestly have to say that the hate Forspoken has been getting is pretty overblown. Having actually played the game, I’m now a lot more confident in Luminous’ vision. While it remains to be seen how the broader story and open-world will play out, the moment-to-moment gameplay and character interactions have won me over so far. Frey’s magical abilities, in particular, are, so far, an absolute blast to use and well-worth the price of admission alone.
If you have a PS5 or PC and like action games, you should absolutely keep Forspoken on your radar when it releases on PlayStation 5 and PC on January 24th, 2023.
Sony has unveiled a set of six motion-capture devices called ‘Mocopi’ that connects to a smartphone to allow the user to control a virtual avatar.
Once strapped on and calibrated, Mocopi’s sensors will link up with your phone and sync with your customizable avatar, who has Genshin Impact-esque appearance. Your avatar can then be placed in real-world locations or combined with other in-app avatars and backgrounds.
You can get a full look at Mocopi in the following Japanese video (captions are available):
It should be noted that this is currently only set to launch in Japan in January 2023 for 49,500 yen (about $486 CAD), and it’s unclear if it will release overseas. Still, it’s interesting to see Sony’s smartphone-based approach to the metaverse, especially since it has applications for both consumers and media professionals.
Sony and Honda may team up to bring PlayStation 5 games to electric vehicles (EVs).
Earlier this year, the two Japanese companies formed a joint venture called Sony Honda Mobility, and its CEO, Izumi Kawanishi, is now speaking on its potential for gaming. In an interview with The Financial Times, Kawanishi said it’s “technologically possible” to integrate PS5 support into Sony Honda Mobility’s future vehicles.
“Sony has content, services and entertainment technologies that move people. We are adapting these assets to mobility, and this is our strength against Tesla,” said Kawanishi.
Sony Honda Mobility plans to release its first EV in 2025, with a North American release planned for 2026. Meanwhile, Tesla has been slowly adding support for games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Cuphead, although it has yet to follow through with CEO Elon Musk’s promises to bring the massively popular RPG Cyberpunk 2077 to its EVs. Streaming services like Netflix and the U.S.-only Hulu are also available in Tesla vehicles.
That said, Tesla’s entertainment offerings rely on licensing, while Sony’s advantage, as Kawanishi points out, is already having its own properties. This includes massively popular gaming franchises like The Last of Us, God of War and Uncharted, as well as film properties like Spider-Man and Ghostbusters.
It should be noted, however, that Kawanishi’s comments aren’t actual confirmation that we’ll see PS5 games in Honda vehicles. Further, 2025-26 is quite a ways off, and the PS5 — which released in November 2020 — will presumably be at the end of its life cycle by that point.
Still, it’s interesting to hear about the potential of such technology, and time will tell how Sony Honda Mobility will use it in its vehicles.
Four years after the beloved God of War reboot, developer Santa Monica Studio is back with its highly anticipated sequel, and it’s nothing short of a masterpiece. In the game, Kratos and Atreus are tasked with finding a means to prevent Ragnarök, the prophesied Norse apocalypse, while learning more about Atreus’ illusive identity as Loki.
To learn more about what went into crafting God of War Ragnarök, we sat down with two members of Santa Monica Studio: Bruno Velasquez, animation director, and Erica Pinto, lead narrative animator. They touched on the work that goes into bringing characters to life through animation, responding to feedback regarding a lack of enemy variety in the last game, Kratos’ flashy new combat moves and more.
Note: This is a spoiler-free interview.
Question: The cast of characters is so much larger in Ragnarök. You still have that core emotional story of Kratos and Atreus, but the ensemble is so much bigger now. So I’m curious — among all of these characters, who were your favourites to work on from an animation perspective?
Pinto: My favourite… Even with a large cast of characters, there’s so many, and I worked God of War (2018) as well. But Freya really resonates with me, and the opportunity to really dive into her story, and try to give her some closure with what happened in the last game in [Ragnarök] was fairly exciting for me to to explore.
“We gave Kratos almost like a glow-up — we increased the number of joints in his face.”
Velasquez: I’m going to cheat a little bit because I’m going to pick two. I’m going to say Brock and Sindri. Because I feel that we have seen them evolved from 2018, where their role was a supportive role and they would interact with Kratos and Atreus in a very fun way. But I feel like this time around, they feel more like a family — they’re part of a family. And now that they’ve reconciled after the ending of the last game, they’re back together as brothers. So I think it’s fun to see their interactions with Kratos and Atreus and how they’ve evolved and grown over the past three years that Fimbulwinter [the prelude to Ragnarök] has been happening. And then Brock is just hilarious — Brock is so much fun. Robert Craighead, who’s the actor that plays Brok, just did an amazing job. And we even brought him in to shoot some of Brock’s navigation running around and it was so much fun. He really brought the character to life.
Pinto: I feel like everybody on the team is going to give you a different answer.
Velasquez: Oh, yeah!
Pinto: Some people really love some of the Aesir characters [Odin’s gods]. And some people love the returning characters. There’s something for everybody.
Velasquez: Our hope, actually, is that the players find and gravitate to one of their favourite characters. We don’t want them to like a certain one only — we want them to gravitate to who they identify with the most.
Brok, the dwarven smith, returns from God of War (2018).
Q: This game is so emotionally powerful, and you’re taking Kratos, especially, into more emotionally vulnerable places. And there are so many quiet, dialogue-free moments where it’s an interaction between him and Atreus and we see all these little subtle animations on his face. Obviously, you don’t want him to be melodramatic, but you also want to take his character and evolve him. So I’m curious — how do you strike that balance, where you have the great writing and [Kratos actor] Christopher Judge’s understated performance, and then on the animation end, you have to bring that to life? What’s the the animation work that goes into conveying that emotion and making these scenes that just floor you?
Velasquez: There is so much that goes into it — it’s definitely a full team effort. It starts with the writing, right? It starts with a really powerful strict script that the actor can connect with and relate to, and a lot of that is really driven by Chris’s performance on how he himself feels as a father, and he puts his personal experiences into into Kratos as well. And when it comes to the performance, yes, the basis is there from Chris, and our animation team then comes in takes that over and finds the moments where we could push things or enhance things or just let it be. We have a very talented group of animators on our team that have really helped us to bring Kratos to life.
Pinto: Even on the technical side, we didn’t just take the same rig from the last project. We gave Kratos almost like a glow-up — we increased the number of joints in his face. We partnered very closely with our Visual Arts Group to really capture all of the performance that Chris Judge gave us, and get all those little micro expressions, and really see how much we could bring out of every character — not just Kratos, but every character got that same amount of attention. And even like our engineering department would work on, like, ‘what is the maximum compression we can squeeze out of our engine to make sure all of that facial performance comes across and doesn’t get wiped away from for memory purposes.
Q: One of the pieces of feedback you got from God of War (2018) was to increase the enemy variety. Having beaten the game, I can attest to just how many more enemy types there are in Ragnarök. When you were making the sequel, what was the process of conceptualizing these enemies — drawing from the Norse pantheon and deciding how each enemy moves around and attacks differently?
The Dreki.
Velasquez: Yes, that was one of the biggest things that we wanted to set off and accomplish based on the feedback from God of War (2018) — to increase the amount of enemies that you faced, and bosses, and make them as epic as possible. And one of the things that we wanted to do as well, other than just increase the variety of them, was also come up with a lot of different types. So you have dragons and you have big giant beasts, and you’ve got small characters that slither across the floor. So we really wanted to give a write a nice variety. We did look at Norse mythology and see what we could pull from that made sense and kind of give it our own twist and adapt it. But really, it just comes from great imagination of our visual development team that come up with.
They’d been working together with the combat designers to come up with these really interesting creatures that then goes through all the pipeline and gets to us. And then we get to have fun deciding like what type of style we want to give them. We do base a lot of stuff off of nature. Like, we have a creature called the Dreki, which is like a giant alligator lizard dragon thing. So we look at a lot of references to see how they slither across the floor. But then again, the animators, that’s where they come in and give it that spark of life and have them do things that you wouldn’t see an alligator through, like leap through the air and slam Kratos. So it’s a combination of a lot of things, like having fun with it from an animation perspective, but also basing it off of real life.
Q: You mentioned the Dreki. Some of the finishing moves for enemies, including the Dreki, involve Atreus, who’s a little older and more experienced now. What the process of coming up with moves that incorporate both him and Kratos to take down an enemy together?
Velasquez: Everything that we try to do in the game across everything is tell a story, right? So even those moves were designed in that way, because you tend to see those moves where Kratos and the Atreus collaborate together usually against bigger enemies. And the reason is we wanted to drive home that now Atreus has grown up and he’s more in tune with his dad. And it’s more like they’re a fighting unit that works together. So we wanted to showcase those moments with these big creatures and that’s that’s why there’s a couple of them with involves both of them. And that was purely the decision of not only to make it cool and make it awesome, but also showcase that growth in relationship between them and make them feel like they’re like a fighting unit that has been training for three years getting ready for Ragnarök.
Pinto: Yeah, I think that was a natural progression from 2018 to here. You saw the progression of Atreus throughout that game and now here, he’s a little older, and he’s not hanging on to Kratos for dear life anymore. He gets to do his own thing. He’s branching out. But they’re still working together. It was fun to establish — both in the combat and also on the story side — what that relationship is like.
Q: Bruno, I’ve seen you mention this is the first God of War game to have weapon-specific finishers. I’m curious — how much time goes into designing these, especially when you have many more enemy types now? Do you sit around in a room just brainstorming the most violent ways Kratos can kill enemies with the Leviathan Axe vs. the Blades of Chaos? What’s that whole process look like?
One of the new enemy types, the Light Elves.
Velasquez: Definitely, that’s been a dream that the team has had for a long time — even as far as like God of War 2 or 3. We had so many different weapons and then Kratos would always default to one animation when he disposed of them. So yeah, it was definitely a goal for us to be able to, for the first time, have weapon-specific kills. Now, you get them on the majority of the enemies — there’s some certain enemy types that you’re going to use their own weapons against them, and then you mentioned the special team up attacks with Atreus and Kratos. But the majority of the enemies that you encounter the most, we focused on them to ensure that they would have like those special animations.
And I promise you we’re nice people, but there’s definitely a dark side to us. [laughs] Because yes, we do get together with the animation team, we get together with the combat designers, we get together with some of our stunt performers, and we just come up with, like, ‘alright, what can we possibly do here to really up the cool way that Kratos can finish off enemies?’ And we try also to draw inspiration from the old games? Because our fans have been with us for a long time and want to make sure that they feel that, ‘oh, that’s a cool callback to that certain kill.’ So it’s a combination of coming up with new ideas and looking at the past and drawing it forward.
Pinto: That’s always the challenge, but also the creative thing. Like, ‘oh, we did that in God of War 2, do we bring it back or what can we make new?’ Because Kratos has been around for a while, so you want to make sure you’re not just copying yourself. We also want to have fun and let the animators stretch their creative flexes.
Q: You have all these new Norse gods, and I won’t spoil some of them here. But for a lot of reviewers, myself included, Odin was a real highlight. Then there’s Thor, who you’ve shown a lot more in the marketing. When you design these characters, how do you give them that sort of unique Santa Monica Studio twist? And how do you bring that to life through animation, especially when you have characters who are shorter or taller or larger, like Thor?
Pinto: It starts all the way from script and our visual development team saying, like, ‘what is something we can try? That’s new.’ And I’m really proud of the diversity we were able to bring to our cast, trying different body types, different genders, different roles, and just seeing how many different types of stories can we tell and then be inclusive in that sense. And the actors bring a great deal to their performances — giving them the script, but then letting them bring their own thing into it. You mentioned Thor — like, Ryan Hurst is huge as well. So just seeing him on the stage and seeing how he relates to other actors, it’s a great collaboration. Bruno, do you want to talk a bit about the size difference a little bit? [laughs]
Thor has a bone to pick with Kratos.
Velasquez: Oh yeah, of course. We had to do a lot of tricks on stage when we were performing with our actors. Because the actor who plays Tyr [Ben Prendergast] is not nine feet tall, right? So we have to get very creative. For example, for the actors that played Brok and Sindri, we would put a picture of their [characters’] heads on their chests, because that was about the height in relation to Kratos where their heads would stand. So Chris Judge would have to look and act to their chests, essentially, where the face plates of Brok and Sindri sweetie were, and that would help us sort of get the eyeline correct and get the connections between them. And of course, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done sometimes to clean up the motion capture data to make sure, especially when they shake hands or they exchange items or something, there’s a lot of alignment things that need to happen. But yeah, we try to make it as easy as possible to visualize for the actors what it would be like to be those characters. And one thing that’s really helpful on stage is that once they have put on the gear, the suits, they can see themselves as a characters up on screen. So that already puts them in the mood and they can see a size and relationship between the characters happening live on screen. So that is very, very useful to help us accomplish our goals.
Pinto: That was also pretty essential for our cinematic arts team who are controlling the camera and the choreography. You need to be able to see how you’re going to frame the characters so they have a virtual camera to say, ‘okay, we need to look up more for Tyr and down more for Brok and Sindri, so having that real-time preview was very important.
Q: The word “epic” is used a lot, but I think it’s very true, in every sense of the word, for this game. Even in the first few hours you have two incredible setpieces — Freya chasing Kratos in the sled and then Thor comes in fights Kratos. And there’s many more that I won’t spoil. But when you design these set pieces, which are so rooted in narrative but also have such big scale and action to them — what kind of work goes into that? Even when you’re animating everything, even little things like when Freya attacks, then Kratos falls off the sled, gets back on it, they swerve left and right… How do you conceive of and ultimately create these kinds of setpieces?
Velasquez: It’s a full team effort. It’s a collaboration between our combat design team who designs those big epic moments, big fights, but then we collaborate with animation and also our cinematics group. Because, as you see a lot, especially in the two moments that you talked about, there’s a lot of gameplay, but then it’s interwoven with these personal moments where you get really close to the characters. And then you need to have these cool transitions that happen between the gameplay moments. So there’s definitely a lot of collaboration that happens. Erica’s team, for example, in the Thor fight, especially towards the end, they had to intermingle this, going from gameplay over to this really cool epic cinematic that I won’t spoil. But it’s definitely a collaboration. Do you want to add anything to that, Erica?
Freya also isn’t happy with Kratos.
Pinto: Yeah. From a narrative standpoint, it’s about, ‘what is the story we’re trying to tell and what are the beats that make sense there?’ And then from a technical side, it’s like, ‘well, if the player can be anywhere in this arena, how do we work them into place so that we can have a cinematic happen in the right place so that they’re looking in the right direction? And at the end of the cinematic, lead the player to where they want to go next?’ There’s definitely a combination of artistic and technical endeavors to pull this off.
Velasquez: Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of tricks under the hood that the player may not perceive and see, but that are happening to make sure that things get lined up and everything gets to the point where we need it to be.
Q: One of my favourite things about the combat this time around is that the levels are bigger and more interactive. Specifically, there’s a verticality, with a fluidity of going to higher platforms or further platforms using the blades. Where did that idea come from? And from an animation perspective, what did you have to do to ensure that it feels seamless? Where you’re maybe fighting on the ground, then you maybe you see a Draugr up high, you launch yourself up there, then jump back down and slam an enemy. There’s a seamlessness to it. What did you have to do to ensure that and maintain that combat rhythm?
Velasquez: One of the goals we set out to accomplish in Ragnarök was to give the combat and give it boost and make it more fluid. So I think one of the biggest things was like, ‘Hey, let’s create some arenas that have verticality so that you’re constantly going up and down, jumping off platforms, reaching higher places. So, of course, the grapple hook made the most sense, because it was something that Kratos did before in the past games. We do look to our previous games to see what we can bring back to the forefront and present it in a new way. So to me, that was an immediate early idea that was conceived: ‘yes, we need to have Kratos have more mobility.’ And now that Atreus is more independent as well, he didn’t have to wait for him to jump on his back or anything like that. So now, Kratos is able to move around the arena more freely. And that was just a perfect way that was drawn from the past games that for him to be able to do that. And we just needed to make sure that it felt snappy and responsive. It was treated almost as a combat move in and of itself, because it needs to feel as good as a combat move. And I think that’s the secret to making it flow.
Q: And part of the change with Ragnarök is you have the Blades early on, so you come up with all these ways to integrate them into combat that — verticality being one of them. What are some of your favourite new moves with that? For me personally, from an animation perspective, the one where he’s like spinning the blades kind of like a lasso.
Pinto: [laughs] That’s still my favourite!
Q: [laughs] Yeah, so I’m curious if you could kind of touch on some of that — your favourites and the sort of the philosophy behind coming up with them.
Velasquez: Do you want to elaborate on why you like that move so much, Erica? [laughs]
Pinto: [laughs] It almost feels like a callback, like he’s just playing with his food. Just the power of it — the bigger flames and bigger effects, it just feels more epic and just feels good to play it.
Velasquez: For me, personally, speaking of the addition of the verticality to the fight spaces, I love doing the off the ledge moves. you get a different one whether you have the Blades, the Axe or you’re bare-handed. You can even summon the Axe in the middle of it, too. So jumping off a ledge and coming down on enemies then seeing them pop up in the air and then you’re able to continue the juggle. It’s so much fun. I’ll never get tired of doing that move.
Pinto: Part of what’s fun is being able to change different moves together. Combos, you know — that adds so much variety visually and just makes things stay fresh.
Q: One of the other new things about this game is all of the accessibility options you have. I think a lot of people don’t necessarily understand why these are important. So for the team, why was it significant to add these? Why is accessibility important?
Pinto: One of our core mantras is, ‘how do we reach as many players as we can?’ And I think accessibility just opens it up for anybody to be able to play. We don’t want to limit it just because of what we created. So I think that we took a lot of feedback from the last game and said, ‘Well, okay, how can we make this even more available for anybody to play?’
Velasquez: Yeah, absolutely. And we draw a lot of inspiration from some of the other PlayStation Studios teams that have done great accessibility features, like Naughty Dog. They’ve always pushed forward in their games a lot of these things that make it easier for people to play. So we were inspired by them and wanted to go ahead and offer as many options as possible. And with some of these things, they could help any player feel more comfortable and change the way that they experience the game. I think that’s very important, because in the end, just like Erica said, we want as many people as possible to be able to enjoy and play the game and get to experience that adventure with Kratos and Atreus and really get the most out of it.
This interview has been edited for language and clarity.
God of War Ragnarök will launch exclusively on PlayStation 4 and 5 on November 9th.
Once again, I haven’t spent that much time with the DualSense Edge, so I don’t have a fully-formed take on it. Further, it remains to be seen whether people will run into any issues in the weeks ahead. I immediately think of the 
