Despite the fact that the DualSense PS5 controller doesn’t have a light bar, you can still use it on PlayStation 5 in some PSVR games if they don’t require any controller tracking — such as Resident Evil 7 VR.
As it stands, if you want to play a PSVR game on your PS5 then you need more than just the headset and console. You’ll have to get the PS Camera of course, as well as the PS Camera adapter for PS5, and in many cases you’ll need a DualShock 4 controller, pair of PS Move controllers, or the PS Aim controller. But some games actually play just fine with the PS5’s DualSense controller even though the PSVR itself won’t have PS5-native VR games according to Sony.
If you’re looking to play a gamepad-only PSVR game that just uses the camera to track your head movement, then you can use the DualSense without any problems. This applies to games like Resident Evil 7 VR, gamepad-mode in Skyrim VR (instead of PS Move mode,) racing games like WipEout Omega Collection or Dirt Rally, and so on.
This is really just more of a convenience thing. Since Resident Evil 7 comes included with PS+ Collection on PS5, I’d imagine there will be a lot of people that buy a PS5 that either do not have a DualShock 4 or sold their PS4, so being able to play the one game in the collection that has PSVR support without a last-gen controller is nice.
To be clear, no PS4 or PSVR games I’ve tried take advantage of the impressive adaptive triggers or precise haptic vibrations I’ve seen PS5-native games use in the controller. Which is a shame, because it’s amazing technology.
In my review of the PS5 I go into detail about how much I love the controller and gush about its potential for VR use cases in the future. We don’t have any indication that Sony plans to use the DualSense adaptive triggers or haptic feedback in their next VR controllers, but it’s still a lot of fun to think about.
If you try to play a gamepad-based PSVR game that has tracking features for the controller, such as Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, it will technically let you play it — all of the button inputs are recognized — but the camera can’t see the controller without a light bar so it’s just invisible. That will make some PSVR games unplayable.
What do you think of this news? Since there are no plans for new PS5 games to support PSVR, it’s neat to still have some sort of parity in a way. Do you look forward to playing some of the gamepad-only PSVR games using a DualSense? Let us know down in the comments below!
