Since December 1, visually and cognitively disabled players have encountered numerous barriers with a new weapon added to Splatoon 3. The Splattercolor Screen, available as part of the Chill Season 2023, causes a player’s screen to significantly brighten – removing all color – as well as experience a high-pitched ring for several seconds. While its intended purpose is to disorient those affected, its actual use is directly impacting disabled individuals, preventing some from playing the game altogether, and even causing major health issues like triggering seizures.

The Splatoon series famously relies on color as a core theme for its varying modes. Covering maps with bright ink is not only necessary, but also part of the fun. Even though accessibility options like Color Lock exist – a setting which enables the selection of different colors for easier differentiation – the Splattercolor Screen nullifies this accessibility tool, albeit temporarily. IGN spoke to a number of disabled players, who discussed the varying ways this new weapon impacts their health, the potential solutions for its inclusion, and how the overall Splatoon community is responding to its use.

Dangerous Equipment

Seraphina D. has enjoyed Splatoon since the first game, clocking in approximately 3,500 hours across three games. Despite their immense enjoyment of the series, they acknowledge Splatoon’s overall accessibility can be bothersome. Mechanics like gyro aiming cause tendinitis flares, and while it’s possible to use joy-cons to fully play, the Splatoon community traditionally “tends to look down on people who use sticks instead of gyro controls for aiming.” But Seraphina notes the occasional harassment from this gameplay method is nothing compared to the painful, disruptive, and dangerous effects brought on by the Splattercolor Screen.

“The color change and noise are not a concern to me,” they said. “It’s the sudden cranking of the brightness for a few seconds, with no way to predict how bad it will be, as each map and ink combination is different. Even with Color Lock it still varies and hurts. It’s disorienting, which I suppose was the goal, but pain very clearly wasn’t their intention either. At its worst, my photosensitivity has given me hemiplegic migraines and has gone all the way to minor seizures – specifically generalized atonic seizures and focal impaired awareness seizures. The last thing I want is to be playing in a tournament with my team and for them to hear a KA-CLUNK over voice chat because I went limp over a special.”

You really have to see this effect for yourself! Fortunately, we have a video.
Notice that in addition to ocular monochromatic enhancement, enemies who touch the screen take damage.
And for the deploying team, remember that this is not a shield—it will not stop incoming ink! pic.twitter.com/nP3f1TVOy7

— Splatoon North America (@SplatoonNA) November 20, 2023

As Seraphina points out, inaccessible barriers in games cannot be alleviated with extra accessibility options alone. The overall design of a game title heavily impacts mechanics like combat, traversal, puzzle solving, and even quest completion. Does a game need complex inputs to defeat enemies? Can objects and enemies be conveyed through visuals other than color? For Splatoon, the answer is no, but that’s when accessibility features like Color Lock are a requirement. When an item completely counters the importance of that setting, as well as introduces new, dangerous barriers, immediate action needs to be taken.

Seraphina is not the only player impacted by the visual and audio effects of Splattercolor Screen. Another disabled Splatoon player going by Spirit notes they are unable to play after being hit with the weapon, leaving them in a weakened and exhausted state. Visually, Splattercolor Screen “causes extreme strain on my eyes, so much so that I’m unable to make out what’s on my screen, and it just looks like a bright, blob of white.” But it isn’t just the visual effects that are stopping Spirit from completing matches where Splattercolor Screen is used.

“The sound that screen makes when hit with it hurts my ears and triggers my tinnitus,” they said. “There’s been many times when I’ve had a migraine after being hit with [Splattercolor Screen]. I’ve had to stop and move away from my console because of the pain, or times where my sight is greatly impacted by auras or dizziness. There’s also been times where I’m barely, or unable, to play due to one side of my body becoming extremely weak. Sometimes I’ve just had to stop playing because of the effects of my migraines. I feel physically ill after being hit with screen, and there have been instances where I’ve thrown up after being hit.”

Seraphina and Spirit’s experiences are not unique, and until Nintendo patches the weapon or completely changes its function, its existence is detrimental to the health of disabled players. But Nintendo has yet to acknowledge the issue, forcing disabled individuals to think of solutions on their own.

Possible Fixes

Since its release, Splattercolor Screen has been met with ambivalence at best and disdain at worst. Aside from outright removing the weapon, disabled players like Spirit and Seraphina are actively trying to create appropriate redesigns that stay true to the Splatoon experience. For Spirit, this means changing the color palette and sound altogether, as well as increase Nintendo’s awareness of disabled individuals.

“Anything from greyscale, swapping ink colors, and making the audio sound muted or muffled,” they said. “Something that’ll still create that initial ‘disorient and confusion’ effect that screen is intended to do, without causing pain when you’re hit. Hopefully, next time they release a new special they’ll put it through accessibility testing, or at least think about how it would affect a player, considering a large chunk of their fan base are disabled and neurodivergent.”

Seraphina is in agreement with a complete rework, noting that an accessibility feature may not be the best approach. Since it negatively impacts individuals through audio and visual mechanics, developers need to address the issue directly, rather than create a new setting to act as a fix that may not even work. Thankfully, for those who still enjoy the uniqueness of Splattercolor Screen, Seraphina states that a proposed fix can still ensure the weapon is disruptive without being harmful.

“Make the environment get covered in a standard grayscale filter, that doesn’t mess with saturation and artificially increase brightness,” they said. “Switch the fizzing noise with some other noise already in the game, like the sound of someone shooting ink or hiding in it, which could fit the special’s original goal of ‘disorient the player so you can overwhelm them easier’ much better. You could even just tone down the noise. The special was a good idea, I just don’t think anyone tested it with anyone who could’ve possibly had physical discomfort with the brightness.”

Accessibility relies on direct feedback from the disabled community. Nobody knows what disabled players need better than those with lived experiences directly relating to inaccessible barriers. And unless Nintendo calls upon the disabled community to work in tandem to create a solution, Splattercolor Screen will continue to cause immense discomfort and physical symptoms.

Community Concerns

Seraphina and Spirit are just two of many Splatoon 3 players calling for a response from Nintendo. Individuals with varying disabilities are finding it difficult or impossible to continue playing matches if Splattercolor Screen is used. And as Seraphina notes, Splattercolor Screen is available in all PVP modes, leaving only PVE activities like Salmon Run or private matches where it’s agreed to not use the weapon. For X/Twitter user Limlis, this constant presence of Splattercolor Screen has drastically reduced how much they play.

“I have auditory processing disorder and I’m very sensitive to bright lights,” they said. “I’ve not really been playing much since the special was added to the game. The last time I got hit by it, I had to set the controller down and stop looking at the screen to avoid eye strain.”

Numerous disabled individuals with visual, auditory, and cognitive processing disabilities are losing access to Splatoon 3. But it’s not just disabled players who struggle with this weapon. Even tournament organizers are imposing restrictions on its use, citing its disruptive effects to be too much for competitors. Inkling Performance Labs – a major Splatoon tournament organization with thousands of members – announced on X/Twitter that “IPL has decided on an org-wide ban on [Splattercolor Screen]. The ban will be temporary until nintendo patches/fixes it enough that we feel that it is no longer a safety concern.” Further, X/Twitter user Sendou, founder of sendou.ink – a competitive Splatoon website that allows players to activate varying filters to locate tournaments and matches – implemented a setting to avoid Splattercolor Screen altogether.

Accessibility isn’t just designed to eliminate inaccessible barriers. Inclusive designs and accessible features allow disabled players to comfortably enjoy the same experiences as their able-bodied peers. While games will always include some form of a blocker for varying disabilities, no title should ever cause harm to those who decide to play. Seraphina and others in the Splatoon community are still avid fans of the series, but the addition of Splattercolor Screen makes them question Nintendo’s commitment to accessibility. And as Seraphina explains, disabled and able-bodied individuals should have the same safe, enjoyable experience.

“If the devs somehow were able to see this, there were a few steps forward with Splatoon 3 for accessibility,” they said. “There also were a few backwards. Splattercolor Screen unfortunately was nowhere close to intention, but with a few small changes, it can still be true to its original form. Disabled players (and abled players) deserve to be able to play the game comfortably, and disorientation is possible without discomfort.”

Grant Stoner is a disabled journalist covering accessibility and the disabled perspective in video games. When not writing, he is usually screaming about Pokémon or his cat, Goomba on Twitter.

2023 has been full of big name games making big splashes, from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to Baldur’s Gate 3 to… Redfall. That’s right, while this year might have had some huge hits, it was also one full of truly eye-popping misses – in fact, IGN published more game reviews with a 4 out of 10 score or below in 2023 than any year since we switched to the 10-point scale by more than double, including our first 1 in about a decade. High highs were coupled with low lows, and all those nostalgic remakes and sequels came alongside a different sort of blast from the past thanks to a slew of underwhelming licensed games, be that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Skull Island: Rise of Kong, or The Walking Dead: Destinies.

So with the paradox that was 2023 in mind, here is every game that scored a four or below on IGN this year.

The 4s

Wanted: Dead

As someone who considers themself an action game buff, Wanted: Dead let me down on just about every front. Its combat may be fun for a few hours, but eventually I realized that it was just a pool of shallow water to splash around in. The fights never evolved in any interesting or meaningful way, the minimal enemy variety never challenged me to change up my tactics, and worst of all I always felt weak, even when I fully maxed out the skill tree. Add on bland visuals, a distinct lack of personality and charm, and frequent crashes, and it all amounts to one of the first big disappointments of 2023. – Mitchell Saltzman, February 14

Crime Boss: Rockay City

Crime Boss: Rockay City is an overly ambitious air ball on all fronts, from its sloppy moment-to-moment gameplay to its largely abysmal voice acting – the worst of which sound like single takes spliced in with mistakes intact. There’s an earnestness with which Crime Boss has been put together that I do admire – as a kind of direct-to-VHS knockoff of Payday on a promising ’90s backdrop – and there is an inescapable novelty in seeing these de-aged Hollywood stars steering the story here. Unfortunately, the hokey charm on display is nowhere near strong enough to offset the repetitive and regularly frustrating mission design, its roguelike single-player rapidly becomes a total chore, and its co-op juice just isn’t worth the squeeze. Sadly, Crime Boss: Rockay City’s coked-up ego has been writing cheques its budget-priced body couldn’t cash. – Luke Reilly, April 6

Redfall

Cyberpunk 2, codenamed Orion, may feature grander branching storylines determined by the player’s starting life path, which were Street Kid, Corpo, and Nomad in Cyberpunk 2077.

Speaking on the Answered Podcast, CD Projekt Red narrative director Philipp Weber said the Life Paths’ lack of influence in the majority of Cyberpunk 2077 is something the studio wants to improve in future titles. While Weber is currently working on the next mainline Witcher game, codenamed Polaris, Cyberpunk’s sequel is currently in the conceptual stages of development too.

“I do think there are things with, for example, the life paths, that kind of gives you a promise as being able to play more different kinds of characters,” Weber said. “I think this is a thing where, in the future, that’s as an example something we would like to improve. Since I do think we gave a promise there that maybe in the end we did not really sell.”

Cyberpunk 2077’s opening changes depending on which life path is chosen, but within an hour the three essentially merge into the one main story. While it does have various branching paths and different choices of its own, the influence of life paths is subsequently limited to occasional additional dialogue options.

“The game begins with this very specific thing, you can be a Nomad, a Corpo, a Street Kid, but then it sometimes goes away a little bit. We move it all together. Then sometimes you can do it,” Weber said. “As a quest designer, I think in retrospect we can see the old topic, given more experience, given more time, I think maybe we would make it a bit less muddled than we did it there.”

The lead quest designer on Polaris, Błażej Augustynek, who also worked on Cyberpunk 2077, said the starting life path isn’t too important to the game’s main story though. “I think with the lifepaths, it’s the life that you leave as V,” he said.

“So whatever you used to do, there’s a clear moment where it all crumbles, right? And you start a new life with Jackie. Obviously we would like it to matter more, but I think the way it plays our right now, it’s like you come from a certain kind of life. And that life has ended. It’s in the past and now you’re living this new life which, ends, spoilers, in the prologue, and then you have to deal with the consequences of that.”

Little is known about Cyberpunk’s sequel as key gameplay decisions like whether it will be first or third person are still being made. The original Cyberpunk 2077 has finally received its last big update though, so attention will be turning more towards its sequel at CD Projekt Red.

The developer told IGN in November it’s determined not to repeat the same practices that led to Cyberpunk 2077’s turbulent launch, which saw the game removed from sale on the PlayStation Store, and has already changed several significant development processes as a result. It was this rocky start that led CD Projekt Red to work on Cyberpunk 2077 for three years, as the developer sought to turn it around and regain the trust of players.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Alex, Jen, and Matt have collected their gongs for the second episode of the IGN UK alternative awards. This week it’s all about games, and there’s not a single one for Baldur’s Gate 3 (although that didn’t stop Matt from bringing it up). There’s no regard here for the best gameplay or most impressive mechanics – instead tune in to learn what the year’s best sound effect was, the game with the best use of bad graphics, and the open world that lasted longer than Alex’s holiday in France.

Ask us anything you’d like or let us know what your favourite games of the year were. Get in touch at ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast 728: The 2023 Alternative Game Awards

• IGN UK Podcast 727: The 2023 Alternative Movie Awards
• IGN UK Podcast 726: GTA 6 Looks Decent
• IGN UK Podcast 725: Predicting The Game Awards 2023
• IGN UK Podcast 724: Scott Pilgrim’s PlayStation Portal
• IGN UK Podcast 723: Napoleon – Small Man, Big Film

The Witcher voice actor Doug Cockle has expressed caution and frustration at the growing presence of artificial intelligence within the video game industry, calling it “inevitable” but “dangerous”.

Cockle, who voices Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher game series and upcoming Netflix film Sirens of the Deep, told IGN that his main concern isn’t with AI itself, but people using it for nefarious purposes.

“AI is inevitable and developers will use AI. We are not 100% sure exactly what that means,” Cockle said. “They’re already doing it in various ways, filling in background, NPC voices, and things like that, which is unfortunate because those voices were all human beings at one point, and the voices are all modelled on human beings. So they have taken someone’s voice, put it into their database, digitized it and are using it to say things that the individual never said. There’s something unethical about that and so there’s a lot of debate going on.”

Cockle was contacted by an AI company a few years ago who wanted to upload his Geralt voice to its database. “And I said no, and I still say no. But that’s not because I don’t like AI,” he said.

“It’s because I think with voice actors, particularly with voice actors who do main character roles, it is a reality that people are ripping our voices off. That’s happening. It’s happened to me on multiple occasions. I can’t even police it because I would spend all my time policing this stupid stuff.”

Even if people are using the voice with good intentions, like genuine fans making Witcher mods, it directly impacts voice actors, Cockle said. “Every time somebody does that, they’re effectively robbing me of income, and not just me, any other voice actor who they do it with,” he said. “We’re all watching our voices get used in ways that we would rather they weren’t.”

It’s when those using AI do have illicit purposes that it gets really scary though. “This is the bit that we really don’t like about AI, is that if they can do it for things that are just commercially questionable, then they can do it with things that are politically or ethically bad,” Cockle said.

“Somebody could use AI to produce something racist using Geralt’s voice, using my voice, or just something against anything that most normal people think is good. That’s where the AI gets dangerous. Fake news, false news, false opinions. We’re seeing it with politicians now. People are putting things out there. So AI is not the problem. It’s the people using AI.”

Cockle continued: “It’s changed a lot as well, because when The Witcher 3 came out, I don’t think that people playing games, not that they weren’t interested, but they didn’t really think about who was voicing these characters. It wasn’t something that was of great interest. But I’ve watched over the years, it has become more and more interesting to players and to fans who the people are behind these voices, and that’s a fantastic thing. But it also means that those voices are much more personalized. It’s not just Geralt. That is my voice.”

Cissy Jones, a voice actor known for her roles in Disney’s Owl House, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, Shin Megami Tensei 5, and more, has started a company called Morpheme.ai to let voice actors embrace AI and gain control of their own voices going forward. Cockle has spoken with Jones about the idea and is fully on board.

“If they’re going to do this, if this is going to happen, then we need to create a way for the actors to control how their voice is used,” he said. “I’ve spoken with a number of AI developers who are interested in doing a similar kind of thing. So there are people out there who are aware of the potential problem here and are working towards some kind of a solution that will make people happy.

“Because I think modders are great. It’s not that I want to punish modders. What they put out is, for the most part, interesting, cool fan-made stuff that just celebrates the world that they love, and that’s to be celebrated. But there’s a line there somewhere, and where exactly that line is what the AI debate is really, really starting to tease out of the industry.”

Video games have already endured a particularly complicated relationship with AI. Embark Studios, the developer of smash hit shooter The Finals, was criticised for using AI voiceovers by myriad actors and even other developers, for example. Embark told IGN that “making games without actors isn’t an end goal” and claimed it uses a mix of both recorded audio voices and audio generated via AI text to speech tools for its games, however.

Video game voice actors previously called out AI-generated explicit Skyrim mods, and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate voice actress Victoria Atkin called AI-generated mods the “invisible enemy we’re fighting right now” after discovering her voice was used by cloning software. Paul Eiding, the voice actor behind Colonel Campbell in the Metal Gear Solid series, also condemned its use.

Ironically, the biggest developer to use AI for voice acting so far is The Witcher studio CD Projekt Red, though this was only done to replace a deceased voice actor after gaining permission from the family.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Released last week as a free update for EA Sports WRC, Central European Rally is a very fast-flowing tarmac rally. Debuting just this year in the real-life WRC, the new tri-nation event (co-hosted between Germany, Austria, and Czech Republic) was held in late October, 2023 – and its digital counterpart was still being pieced together at the time of EA Sports WRC’s own launch on October 31.

As an entirely asphalt event, Central European Rally enters the game as one of the trickier rallies players will face – or, at least, certainly those playing on gamepads. EA Sports WRC remains a twitchy mistress for those trying to tame the tarmac via a tiny analogue stick, so make sure to keep your inputs as smooth as possible.

Packed with high-speed sectors – but punctuated with plenty of junctions and harsh kinks to break them up – Central European Rally will reward players who can both keep it pinned when the roads straighten out, and attack the corners without losing too much momentum. With more space on the verges than you get at the likes Monte Carlo or Japan, and even Croatia and Iberia, it’s possible to push the envelope by cutting corners and running considerably wider on exits – but that’s still something you’ll need to do with a decent degree of finesse. This is especially true if you’re running a very firm tarmac set-up; hanging a wheel (or two) off the asphalt in this rally is all well and good considering there’s regularly nothing to run into – but it will definitely bounce you right out of control if you’re not careful.

In positive news, playing on Xbox Series X I only encountered one significant instance of screen tearing in the new Central European Rally stages. This is an issue that was a lot more prevalent around the game’s original launch, and one Codemasters has been addressing.

For its part, the studio maintains these issues weren’t known to the team prior to launch.

“The stuttering issues only emerged at launch, alongside a few other unknown issues, particularly among our PC players who exhibited various hardware configurations, but it wasn’t exclusive to that format,” says Codemasters creative director Matthew Battison. “Our teams have since been addressing these issues via our patches to enhance the performance and overall gaming experience, and both performance and visuals have vastly improved within a few days after launch.”

These issues arrived in the wake of a switch from Codemasters’ in-house engine (which underpinned Dirt Rally 2.0) to Unreal, but the team remains optimistic about the longer term benefits.

“Moving to Unreal was no easy undertaking, which meant we had to build many systems and tools from scratch,” explains EA Sports WRC game designer Jon Armstrong. Armstrong is also a real-life rally driver and was runner-up in the 2021 and 2022 Junior WRC (a competition for drivers under 29) and 2023 ERC3 champion (the second tier of the European Rally Championship).

“However, this has allowed us much more creativity and productivity than ever before,” he continues. “Track building lead times have been significantly reduced and our tracks are now over 30 kilometres in length and can be driven in any season. New tools have been made to improve processes in all departments, which had been impossible or time consuming before.”

“WRC has a rich history, and its future is just as exciting,” adds Battison. “There are still hundreds of kilometres of road and many more vehicles that we’re eager to incorporate into future iterations. As mentioned, moving to the Unreal Engine has allowed us to refine our working processes for an iterative title like WRC, and we’re excited to continue building on [its] early success.”

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can chat to him on Twitter @MrLukeReilly.

In a major change in course, PlayStation will no longer delete Discovery content from PlayStation users’ libraries.

The gaming giant had previously announced plans to remove Discovery-related content earlier this month. At the time, Sony said, “due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library.”

It was a shocking moment that dealt a blow to those who prefer to purchase their entertainment digitally instead of physically. Discovery’s offerings include the likes of Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, MythBusters, Tanked, and much more. If Discovery content was being removed, what else was in danger?

However, in an update on its website, PlayStation revealed that things have changed. At this time, there are no longer any plans to remove purchased Discovery content.

“Due to updated licensing arrangements, the Discovery content removal planned for December 31, 2023 is no longer occurring,” the statement says. “We appreciate your ongoing support and feedback.”’

As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, the “updated licensing agreement” referenced refers to a new deal with Discovery owner Warner Bros., which will allow users to access their purchased content “for at least the next 30 months.”

“Similar to other services, we do not own the licensing rights to TV/movie content that was previously available for purchase on PlayStation Store,” the company said. “However, we’ve worked with Warner Bros to update our licensing agreements, ensuring that consumers will be able to access their previously purchased content for at least the next 30 months.”

PlayStation users have been unable to purchase or rent movies and shows since 2021.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.

Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.

The hacker primarily responsible for leaking dozens of clips of an in-development Grand Theft Auto 6 has been sentenced to an indefinite imprisonment in a secure hospital.

According to BBC, hacker Arion Kurtaj is a member of international hacking group Lapsus$, which has previously carried out numerous attacks on major companies including Nvidia, Microsoft, Samsung, and Uber.

Kurtaj was apparently out on bail for the Nvidia attack and in police protection at a Travelodge when the attack was carried out in September of last year. Though his laptop had been confiscated at the time, Kurtaj was nonetheless able to hack into Rockstar’s internal systems using an Amazon Firestick, his hotel TV, and a cell phone. Not long after, he posted the clips and game source on online messageboard GTAForums.

Kurtaj was deemed unfit to stand trial due to a medical diagnosis of acute autism, which resulted in a request that the jury simply determine whether or not he was responsible for the attack, not whether or not he’d had criminal intent. He was reportedly violent while in police custody, including “dozens of reports of injury or property damage,” according to BBC. BBC also reports that a mental health assessment in the hearing read that Kurtaj “continued to express the intent to return to cybercrime as soon as possible. He is highly motivated.”

While Kurtaj’s defense reportedly argued the success of the recent GTA 6 trailer indicated there had been no measurable negative impact from the hack on Rockstar, Rockstar in turn argued that it had cost the studio $5 million and thousands of hours of staff time. The trial concluded with Kurtaj being sentenced to an indefinite imprisonment in a secure hospital, with the potential to be freed if doctors determine he is no longer a threat to others.

The Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks were, at the time, one of the most massive leaks in gaming history. They encompassed the game’s source code and 90 footage clips, all with unfinished assets and other in-development elements. The leaked videos were taken down quickly by publisher Take-Two Interactive, and Rockstar confirmed the hack was real not long after in a public statement.

While Kurtaj has been tried and sentenced alongside, per the BBC, another unnamed 17-year-old member of the group, a number of other members of Lapsus$ are believed to remain at large.

Massive as the Grand Theft Auto 6 hack was, the industry has been dealing with another enormous and damaging hack in the past week, this time targeting Insomniac Games. After threatening to release confidential company information unless they were paid 50 BTC, or around $2 million, hackers released 1.67 terabytes of data on Insomniac games, Sony business and contract information, and employee personal information. Sony has yet to issue a statement on this event.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

After three jam-packed years filled with multiple peripherals, numerous updates, and hundreds of games, the PlayStation 5 has cemented itself as the most popular home console, with nearly double the units sold as the Xbox Series X and S. It may look a little bit different thanks to the 2023 Slim model revision, but today’s PS5 isn’t radically different from what came out three years ago: it’s still a weird-looking workhorse of a machine with a best-in-class controller, and it can more than hold its own when playing the most demanding games available today.

For the most part, you can put aside speed comparisons with the Xbox Series X. If the past few years of in-depth Performance Reviews of cross-platform games has taught us anything, it’s that both consoles are up to the task of running current games. The PS5 has an AMD Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU, 16GB of GDDR6 RAM, Wi-Fi 6, and gigabit Ethernet, which keeps it competitive with the Xbox’s slightly higher specs. And if your TV can handle it, it supports Variable Refresh Rate to combat screen tearing, and some games offer the ability to run at 120 frames per second at the cost of resolution or graphics features like ray tracing. It’s even got 1440p support if you want to plug into a gaming monitor.

The newest model of PS5, officially called the PS5 Slim, packs all of those same features into a more compact, slimmer design that’s a lot nicer on the eyes than the bulky launch version. As a nice bonus, you get a slightly larger 1TB storage capacity, for 848GB of usable space – 181GB more than the launch version. That right there addresses two of our criticisms from the original version: it was huge, and didn’t have as much storage as the Xbox Series X.

On that note, one of this generation’s most important upgrades is the switch from traditional hard drives to solid-state storage drives, or SSDs. That dramatically improves loading times across the board and enables games to load in new objects on the fly so you don’t get pop-in when, for example, swinging through New York in Spider-Man 2. The PS5’s SSD can read 5.5GB in just one second (which is, on paper, twice as fast as the Series X). In practical terms, that speed means you can fast-travel to nearly any point on the map in less than six seconds. After generations of reading tooltips and staring at splash screens, it’s pretty unreal how quickly some games load.

Bear in mind, though, that a single Call of Duty game is 150GB these days, so you may still want to invest in extra storage. To do that you can easily pop off the side panels to install an M.2 SSD drive right off the shelf, which currently range from affordable 250GB to 4TB monsters that can cost more than two PS5s alone. That gives the PS5 more flexibility than the Xbox Series X and its proprietary expansion cards.

The PS5 Slim is sold as either a digital-only or disc model for $449.99 and $499.99 respectively, but if you feel remorse after giving up your physical media you can buy a drive separately for $80 and snap it on yourself. Heads up: you do have to be connected to the internet to activate the drive on a new console.

Our previous reviewer, Luke Reilly, described the original PS5 as far and away the most flamboyant-looking console he’s ever owned. While the Slim version is about 30% smaller, it still fits that description. It’s a weirdly misshapen, eye-catching thing, and if you want to lay it horizontally you need to attach a set of little legs between the slots on the disc drive side. They click in quickly and give it a reasonable amount of sturdiness. If you are more of the vertical persuasion, it’s downright sturdy in that orientation as long as you have the disc drive. It’s just a shame that the vertical stand isn’t packed in and has to be purchased separately for $30.

To accommodate that swappable disc drive, there are now two face plates on each side instead of the singular panel per side on the original. I thought I wouldn’t like combining the glossy top panels with the standard matte finishes on the bottom panels, but it’s grown on me. Granted, it’s still very new, but every time I see the light reflecting off of it I feel like it’s the first day I took it out of the box, and the combined gloss of the top plates and the central part of the PS5 gives it a pleasant luster. The panels are all pretty simple to remove, which is excellent for regular console cleaning, but also makes me look forward to customizing its look with the multicolored plates Sony says it’ll sell at some point in the future.

On the front, you’ll find one Hi-Speed USB Type-C port, one SuperSpeed (10Gbps) Type-C port and the power button. If you have a disc drive, the eject button is actually next to the slot instead of next to the power button – Sony’s finally learned! On the back there are two SuperSpeed USB type-A ports, the HDMI 2.1 port, and Ethernet. That’s plenty for charging controllers, plugging in external storage, and hooking up a PSVR 2. But sorry audiophiles, there’s still no optical audio out.

Apart from the big graphical power jump and short load times, the biggest difference between this generation of PlayStation and the last is the part you hold in your hands. You can check out our full review of the amazing DualSense controller for a more in-depth dive into its features and battery life, but looking at it at the end of 2023, the extent of its wonders varies depending on what game you’re playing and the lengths the developers went to in designing around it. The three-year-old Astro’s Playroom remains one of the best showcases for everything the DualSense can do, and though Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Housemarque’s Returnal are other great examples, many others still neglect or overuse the haptic feedback, sometimes making pulling the trigger a chore to the point where I’ve just had to turn it off altogether. But even then, it’s still a nice option to have that you don’t get anywhere else.

It’s also worth mentioning that I did suffer some very slight drift on my launch controller, but that didn’t happen for a little over a year, and I’ve seen no issues with the replacements. This is a far cry from what I dealt with during the PS4 era, where I probably saw drift after about eight months with each controller.

Fun, Anyone?

When you fire it up after the simple setup process, the PS5’s interface doesn’t feel wildly removed from its roots on the PS4, but it’s definitely different – and significantly more elegant in a number of ways. Selecting a game immediately takes over the main menu background and music with dramatic effect. A single tap of the PlayStation button in the center of the controller will bring up what Sony calls the Control Center, which is a little like a taskbar on a Windows PC and lets you quickly switch between your active and recent games and apps like Netflix and Spotify. It’s a big improvement over PS4 – back then, checking things like current downloads and what friends of yours are online required a bunch of shuffling back and forth, up and down, and left and right through menu icons; the PS5’s Control Center places all that info at our fingertips. You can also organize your library into Gamelists, which are basically folders. But heads up, the PS5 doesn’t really have a web browser.

For those who live for the thrill of the Trophy hunt, the objects of your desire are easily accessible to view from each game’s individual splash page on the dashboard, but Trophy info can also be included in the Activity Card view. And as a bonus, you can pin up five trophies to the side of your screen to keep track of your progress as you play.

There’s other interesting stuff sprinkled throughout the PS5’s UI too. When hovering over a game, there is an hour counter that will let you know approximately how long you’ve sunk into it. I say approximately because it usually doesn’t match up with the hour clocks attached to the save files in my games, so it’s possible it’s only counting active time and not some of the extended periods I have the game paused. You can also go into the global settings menu to automatically configure difficulty, subtitle preferences, and even invert the Y-axis by default – like the Xbox 360 used to do (take note, Microsoft).

That brings us to Remote Play. You don’t need to invest in Sony’s flashy new PlayStation Portal to play away from your couch – any phone, tablet, or PC can stream your games directly from your personal PlayStation 5 over a local network connection, or even anywhere you have decent internet access. Sony’s game streaming tech also enables features like watching a friend play a game picture-in-picture while you chat with them and play something else entirely, or use Share Play to let them try playing your game over the internet.

If you’re upgrading from PlayStation 4, you can rest assured that all of your old games will make the jump with you, though the process isn’t quite as smooth as it is on Xbox because there’s both a PS4 and PS5 version of everything. Also, this doesn’t apply to PSVR; you can plug your original PSVR into the PS5 and it’ll work, but without any upgrades, and your PSVR library won’t transfer to PSVR 2.

Like the other platforms, Sony has its PlayStation Plus subscription, which is required for online play in most games, but also nets you a handful of games each month that are yours to play as long as you maintain your subscription. PlayStation Plus starts at $9.99 monthly ($79.99 yearly), and goes up to $17.99 monthly ($159.99 yearly) for the highest tier, which gets you access to game trials, cloud streaming for games on the service, and access to download classic games from the PS1 and PS2. As someone who has multiple years subbed to the highest tier, it’s an okay foundation, but it’s missing the killer library of Xbox Game Pass and its commitment to bringing first-party games to the service on day one.