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All direct-feed gameplay footage in this video review was, unless otherwise stated, captured using a single PlayStation Access Controller during gameplay, using no additional input switches. Gameplay footage where I’m on camera was captured using a combination of up to two Access Controllers and a Dualsense.
Originally announced back at the start of 2023, the PlayStation Access Controller is an accessibility focused controller being released on December 6th 2023, aimed at allowing a wider range of disabled gamers the ability to comfortably play PS5 games via its customisable layout and expansion slots for 3.5mm input devices.
I was sent a pair of PlayStation Access Controllers around a week and a half prior to this review being published, and during that time I’ve gone back and forth a fair amount on my opinion of the device as I wrestle with what it is, what it isn’t, and how it’s ultimately going to fit into my own gaming life.
It’s a device with limitations to its usefulness, without a doubt, but I think where I land is that the Access Controller is pretty special if you’re able to work within some of its more rigid design choices. I was surprised how quickly I adapted to using it, and how well I was ultimately able to make a single Access Controller work when playing more complex 3D titles that don’t automate camera functionality.
For my specific use case, as a gamer with joint pain and a worsening fine motor control disability, I was able to make the PlayStation Access Controller work as a really valuable addition to how I play games on console. That isn’t going to be the case for every disabled gamer, but after several days with the device I can see how it’s going to be a regular part of my gaming life going forward.
The PlayStation Access Controller is a circular modular controller base, featuring one large central button and a ring of smaller buttons around its outer edge. The controller comes with a single analogue stick, which can be placed at any of the four cardinal compass directions and features a customisable top section, as well as featuring four 3.5mm ports for external peripherals on one side. Keycaps on the outer ring can be altered to different shapes, or removed entirely, and come with rubber icons to denote their functionality during play. Players can use up to two access controllers and a DualSense controller at the same time as a single user, customising their setup between those devices, and swapping between controller customisation profiles with the press of a button. Three profiles can be saved on each controller at any one time, with up to 40 profiles able to be stored on the PS5 console for later use.
The device packaging is well designed with accessible packaging principles in mind, including two large loops to help remove the outer box sticker, a lack of cable ties inside the box, and large loops for any pieces within the box which may need lifting.
The keycaps on the controller can be removed by, generally, pressing a small button and lifting them with a tilting motion. They can be replaced with different shaped keycaps, which are guided back into place via magnets. While this process was generally fairly smooth, there are a couple of keycap shapes which are less intuitive to easily remove. There is a double width keycap which features no release catch button and is simply removed via force, and one keycap with a curved design which, when tilted back for removal, gets slightly caught on the controller and can become slightly stuck and a little hard to remove.
One of the most common questions I’ve been asked about the PlayStation Access Controller since I went hands on with the device at a September preview event in London is, in my opinion, whether it’s possible to purchase just one Access Controller, rather than a pair of them, and still play the majority of titles released on PS5? This is a tricky question, and one where the answer will vary wildly depending on your disabilities and use case, but I do want to talk about my experience on this topic to start off this review.
When I first went hands on with the Access Controller back in September, my instinct when creating controller mappings for more complex games such as Horizon: Forbidden West was to create a two Access Controller setup for playing the game. Each Access Controller features a single analogue stick, so using a single Access Controller creates an obvious issue when trying to map games where camera control and character control are handled using different control sticks. A pair of Access Controllers felt necessary not only to get access to two analogue sticks, but because there were not enough buttons on a single Access controller to map every single face button from a DualSense to the device at once. It felt like a pair of Access Controllers was going to be a necessity for these kinds of games.
However, now I’ve had some additional time in my own home with the device, I ultimately found that most games were playable for me using just a single Access Controller, with a bit of creative profile switching.
Take, for example, a game like Lies of P.
Lies of P is a Dark Souls style 3D action combat adventure, with challenging robot enemies to fight. While there were not enough buttons on a single Access Controller to map every single possible button to the device at once, I was able to map the most important functions to the device with relative ease, while ignoring a lot of rarely used inputs. To handle the single analogue stick issue, I simply made a mirror of my Lies of P button mapping profile, one where the only difference was that my analogue stick swapped between left and right stick functionality. By clicking in the analogue stick I could recentre my camera behind myself while walking around, which was usually sufficient during play. If I needed to tweak my view beyond that I could quickly switch profile with a button press, move the camera, then double tap the profile button to return to moving my character.
It took a little adjustment, but I very quickly found that for most 3D games I wanted to play on a single Access Controller I could make do with this kind of setup, using the profile switch to quickly swap stick functionality and tweak my camera position between character movements, allowing most games to be mappable to a single Access Controller with a bit of creativity.
There are obviously exceptions, some games make more frequent use than others of a larger percentage of possible DualSense inputs, but these situations were surprisingly fairly rare. If you can reduce most of a game’s core functions down to 9 buttons, you can probably make it work on a single Access Controller.
Having access to a pair of Access Controllers during the review period there were definitely games where mapping my inputs across two Access Controllers made it easier to create natural feeling control schemes, but in practice there were very few games that I couldn’t map to a single Access Controller with decent functionality coverage. Generally, I used my second Access Controller as a place to map button inputs I was definitely going to need when playing a game, but would rarely need in the heat of action. The second Access Controller became where my start button, touchpad button click, D-Pad shortcuts, and analogue stick click functions ended up residing, just in case the need for them came up during play.
While it’s initially a little intimidating being presented with the PlayStation Access Controller and basically zero input on how you might set up a control scheme for a game, and my initial hours with the device were spent trying to create bespoke control schemes on a game by game basis every time I launched a new title, what I ultimately found worked best for me was creating a singular default control scheme that made sense to me and I could develop muscle memory around as a base to customise from for other titles. For me, that looked like the Cross, Square, Triangle and Circle face buttons laid out in a clockwise order, starting with the default accept button and rotating in the same order as seen on the DualSense controller.
When starting up a new game I would duplicate that base control scheme, name it after the game I was about to play, and then from there tweak my controls a little depending on which buttons were most commonly needed in that specific title.
I tended to find that, where able, I wanted to remove the keycaps from the lower half of the Access Controller, to rest my hand more comfortably on inactive keys, mapping the rest of my controls based on frequency of use, and how comfortable or not a key was going to be to reach during play.
While there was definitely a little bit of a hurdle to overcome with the device, particularly during my first lengthy day of play where a lot of time was spent experimenting with different control layout styles, I ultimately found that by my second day of play, everything started to click into place pretty quickly. Even more novel actions, such as rotating between profiles to swap stick functionality, quickly became actions I could do without much thought. Yes, there was a good eight hour first session with the device where every input felt deliberate, like it needed conscious thought to enact, but the device form factor really does end up lending itself to falling into a comfortable rhythm, and starting to feel at home with its unique setup.
It felt, honestly, like learning to play games on an arcade style fighting stick. I got all my most used buttons laid out under one hand, where I could most easily reach them, and put anything new I was playing into that mental context. Everything became an arcade style fighting game layout, and it turns out a lot of different genres can be made to fit that kind of controller setup.
It is worth noting that the Access Controller doesn’t feature support for emulating touchpad swipes or motion controls in any way. For any games where these controls are mandatory, such as the PS5 pack-in title Astro’s Playroom, use of a DualSense controller is mandatory for progression. There are certain aspects of a DualSense controller simply not available to Access Controller users, and this will mean that certain titles are impossible to complete without at least partial use of a standard PS5 controller. Astro’s Playroom is the obvious example to point to as a first-party title that demands use of controller features as a showcase title, but it is an example that demonstrates there is no guarantee that a given title will be completable with an Access Controller alone.
I would really like to see, over time, PlayStation update the PS5 and Access Controller firmware to try and introduce creative solutions to these kinds of input accessibility issues, such as the ability to map an analogue stick to emulate motion tilting inputs, or the ability to map a button press to an emulated directional touchpad swipe. Right now the approach is to treat these input types as inherently inaccessible, but I’d love to see innovation in this space over time, to try and make these types of titles playable by Access Controller users who may struggle to interact with their DualSense.
While I generally found it a lot easier than I expected to map controls for most games to a single Access Controller with a bit of creativity, one thing I personally really struggled with was finding an intuitive way to lay out D-Pad directional controls that I could comfortably build muscle memory around. The Access Controller analogue sticks can only be customised to act as left or right analogue sticks, and not to any other functionality, meaning they cannot be mapped to function as a D-Pad for games requiring digital directional input. If mapping the analogue sticks to function as a D-Pad were an option, and I hope it gets added as one via an update down the line, I probably would have made the third profile I used for more complex games like Lies of P into one that had that functionality. Using the profile switch to rotate between left analogue, right analogue, and D-Pad functions on one stick would probably have covered most of my directional input use cases pretty well.
But, because the Access Controller’s buttons are laid out in a circular formation, I found it difficult to place all four directional inputs of a D-Pad in positions that felt like it made sense for my existing muscle memory. The best solution I personally found for titles like Tetris Effect was to set D-Pad left, up, and right buttons together in a clockwise rotation, with D-Pad down placed near by palm. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was functional enough.
I did research external 3.5mm D-Pad options online during the review period, as wanting to move my D-Pad to an external input was one of the most common changes I wanted to make to the Access Controller’s default layout. 3.5mm D-Pad mappable devices do exist, but that research path brings me to discussing the one major shortcoming of the PlayStation Access Controller compared to its competitors, the Xbox Adaptive Controller and the Hori Flex.
The Xbox Adaptive Controller and Hori Flex are, at their core, hubs designed for the use of external 3.5mm and USB inputs. While both devices do feature face buttons, neither device ships with an included analogue stick, and their use as stand-alone controllers for 3D video games is clearly secondary to their function as input hubs. Each device supports connecting more than 20 external inputs at once, allowing for a fully customisable experience for those willing to put in the time researching their options.
The PS5 Access Controller is, undeniably, more of a complete controller solution straight out of the box. Without buying any additional inputs you can make modern 3D games playable, something that can’t be said for the Hori Flex or Xbox Adaptive Controller. That said, there is a tradeoff. Each PlayStation Access Controller only features four 3.5mm external input ports, and no USB inputs, for a total of eight external ports if you have two of these controllers.
I don’t want to focus too much of this review on what this device isn’t, you can hear these thoughts more in depth in my hands-on preview from back in September, but in summary I feel like the device’s limited number of 3.5mm ports is an area where this compares negatively to the Xbox Adaptive Controller and Hori Flex. Four ports, or possibly eight, compared to the competitor’s 20 or more ports does limit the kinds of setups this can support, as does the decision not to support USB inputs.
It isn’t a huge issue for me and my personal use case, but it is surprising how quickly four ports can vanish when trying to create a custom setup. Because each D-Pad direction I wanted to remap to an external device was a separate signal, the external device I was looking into using for my D-Pad inputs was going to take up all four of my 3.5mm input ports in one go. If the game I wanted to play also required the use of analogue triggers, which would need to be external switches as all PlayStation Access Controller inputs are digital, I would have to choose between that and my external D-Pad. Thankfully I had two Access Controllers available, increasing my port availability to eight, but needing a second Access Controller to access more than four 3.5mm ports isn’t ideal.
While 3.5mm analogue sticks do exist, many external joysticks used with other accessibility controllers are USB devices, meaning that they will not be compatible with the Access Controller, and you will likely need to replace them if the included sticks on the Access Controller aren’t a good fit for you in function or position.
If you’re someone not invested in either Xbox or PlayStation consoles currently, looking at which to purchase based on their accessibility controller options, this is the main thing that might push you to Xbox over PlayStation. If you need more external inputs, or the core buttons of PlayStation’s Access Controller are too high resistance for you to press comfortably and you need external inputs for that reason, you’re not necessarily well served by the Access Controller only featuring four input ports per device.
I don’t want to focus too much of this review on what this device isn’t, but I do want to acknowledge that drawback does exist, and is one that feels like it could have been avoided. More ports on an otherwise identical device would have been the best of both worlds, and it’s hard for me to see justification for the limited number of ports being anything but a negative for its design.
While on the topic of external input switches, I can confirm that the 3.5mm input switches in the Logitech Adaptive Gaming Kit for Xbox work perfectly fine on the PlayStation Access Controller. The new 3.5mm inputs being sold with PlayStation branding later this year are mainly differentiated by containing different button labelling stickers.
Setting up the Access Controller for use with 3.5mm inputs was pretty simple, with analogue inputs read and registered correctly by the PS5 system without issue.
One really nice set of features provided on a software level, when setting up the PlayStation Access Controller, is the ability to set buttons on the device to act as a toggle for button holds, and the ability to set a single button to act as a two button press macro. The toggle functionality in particular is very well implemented, with an on screen indicator to remind the player when a button is being virtually held. My biggest complaint about this pair of features is that, at present, they’re exclusive to Access Controller users, and not available for DualSense gamers. It’s really valuable to offer button hold toggling and two button macros as system level controller remapping options, and I hope we see this functionality offered outside of the Access Controller context.
In terms of use as a foot based controller, the PlayStation Access Controller isn’t as natural of a fit as the Xbox Adaptive Controller, with its pair of large separated circular buttons. If you have a pair of PlayStation Access Controllers it’s viable to map each one so that multiple buttons on it activate a single input, reducing some need to be accurate and precise with your foot placement, making setting up two foot based inputs fairly reliable. Alternatively, with a single Access Controller, it’s possible to map the left and right side buttons to different inputs, getting two inputs that can be interacted with separately with some degree of accuracy. It’s definitely possible to use the device as a foot based controller, but doing so doesn’t feel as natural of a configuration as an Xbox Adaptive Controller does out of the box.
I want to take a little bit of time here in this review to try and answer, to the best of my ability, some of the more common questions I’ve seen asked about the PlayStation Access Controller in the runup to its release, as there are a lot of specifics about the device that PlayStation hasn’t really addressed prior to the review embargo lifting.
Can the PlayStation Access Controller be used with a PC?
Kind of, maybe.
The first time I connected the PlayStation Access Controller to my PC, Steam recognised the controller, and correctly identified it as an Access Controller. While Steam didn’t recognise the layout profiles I’d created on my PS5 and loaded into the Access Controller memory, it did connect to the PC via a wired connection, and I was able to remap my controls via Steam to match my chosen controller layout. I could only use a single Access Controller at a time, Steam wouldn’t allow me to use a pair of them as one user, and I couldn’t profile switch to change controller layout functionality like I could on PS5, but it did technically work on PC.
However, after disconnecting the Access Controller from the PC and reconnecting it, my custom mapping was forgotten by Steam, and all attempts to redo the controller mapping failed. I couldn’t get Steam to map certain inputs to certain buttons anymore, and there was no clear reason for that change in functionality.
So yeah, the Access Controller sort of works on PC, kind of. I wouldn’t buy one on launch day specifically for use on PC, that use case is a little temperamental at the time of this review, but in theory it can work.
Can the PlayStation Access Controller be used on either Nintendo Switch or Xbox consoles?
I attempted to use a number of adapters, including the Titan Two, to get my Xbox or Switch to recognise the PlayStation Access Controller, but without success. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I couldn’t get it to work.
Can the Access Controller be used alongside the new PlayStation Portal?
No, it can’t.
The PlayStation Portal gets kicked out of its remote play connection to the PS5 if you connect any other controller, including the Access Controller, to your PS5. You cannot use the Portal as a remote screen for your PS5, while using an Access controller to interact with your gameplay.
Can you use a PlayStation Access Controller with PS VR2?
For some games, yes.
If a game is playable in VR while using a DualSense controller, with no need for touch or motion inputs, such as a game like Tetris Effect, you can play it in VR using an Access Controller.
How is the Battery Life?
In terms of battery life, the PlayStation Access Controller seems to match, if not outperform, the battery life of the DualSense controller. This isn’t necessarily surprising, given the controller’s lack of rumble and resistive trigger functionality, but on a first complete charge I found the Access Controller battery lasted for around nine hours of gaming, give or take some breaks during that time where the controller was connected to the console but not actively in use.
I know I’ve probably seemed a little negative at times during this review, as a result of having critiques of some of the functionality and design decisions present with the device, but I do want to be clear that, at the end of the day, I do think there is a lot to love about the PlayStation Access Controller. It’s a device I’ve really grown to love, and one I can really see becoming a big part of my day to day gaming.
I love that, at its best, this is a controller that I can just grab and go, without a fiddly setup process. For a lot of games where I have a “default” controller mapping set up, I can just grab the Access Controller and it’s ready as I left it, without needing to think about cable management for external inputs. I can just turn the controller on, it remembers my button mapping, and I’m good to go.
As much as I initially found myself caught off guard by it, I like the small single hand sized form factor, and that the Access Controller comes with a customisable analogue stick as default. I like that, with some experimentation, I can create setups where I can just grab one of these controllers instead of my DualSense, and hop into complex 3D games without much of a relearning process.
I think that a world where the PlayStation Access Controller exists is an undeniably step forward for the video game industry, with a new design format accessibility controller offering new tools to disabled gamers. It’s great we live in a world where all three major consoles have accessibility controllers available for them, and where we’re not just settling into the idea that the first major example the industry produced should be the template for all accessibility controllers going forward.
For my use case, as someone who doesn’t generally need my controls too spread out, and doesn’t have a huge need for external switches, and doesn’t struggle with the resistance level of the buttons on this device, a self contained accessibility controller is going to be a really good fit for me. It’s unfortunately not going to be a good fit for everyone’s use cases, but for me the ability to have everything built into one device with no trailing wires to manage means I’m a lot more likely to use the Access Controller when I need to, rather than thinking about the hassle sometimes associated with setting up a more modular controller hub for use.
While there are things about the PlayStation Access Controller I wish were different, primarily the limited number of ports, button resistance, and decision to limit some of the ways the device can be remapped, I do think it’s a really important device. I want to see a model released down the line with more 3.5mm input ports available, and I still think a multiplatform accessibility controller would be a preferable solution to each console maker selling their own bespoke accessibility hardware, but the Access Controller has really grown on me after some extended use, and I’m a lot more positive about it after some extended use than I was after my initial hands on experience.
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