Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming

PlayStation beta test introduces much-needed social tweaks

Tomas Franzese
By

Sony revealed the latest PS5 and PS4 software beta on the PlayStation Blog today. The new beta will introduce several new features encompassing Game Base, party chat, UI, voice commands, and accessibility.

Recommended Videos

Grouping up with friends and talking over voice chat has always been a clunky experience on PS4 and PS5. The features Sony is experimenting with during the beta test should make for a less cumbersome experience. Beta users can create open and closed parties, report users with visual indicators of who was speaking, and Share Play right from the voice chat card on PS5. On PS4, players can also experiment with the new party parameters and adjust the voice chat volume of individual users. 

PS4 players will soon be able to adjust the volume of party members.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Many of the Game Base improvements on PS5 also directly relate to the social experience. The Game Base menu is getting divided into three sections for Friends, Parties, and Messages. The Friends tab will allow players to more easily search for players, access friend requests, and decline friend requests. Players can also send quick messages, images, and video clips to a group via game base. And if one of the players in a party is sharing whatever is on their screen, an “on-air” icon will indicate that. 

Related

The UI improvements make it easier to manage the best games in your collection. Not only can players now search their game library by genre, but they can also pin up to five games or apps on the PS5 home screen so their favorites don’t disappear when they install or play new games. The number of apps displayed on the home screen will also be increased to 14. Outside of that, the trophy UI has been reworked and the Share Screen option will be available right from the Create menu.

When it comes to accessibility, the screen reader will now support Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Korean, Polish, and Russian. PS5 players can also now choose to use mono audio. Checkmarks will appear on enabled settings, which will help players understand what accessibility features are turned on. 

Finally, Sony is letting players in the U.S. and the U.K. experiment with using voice commands on PS5. Using the microphone on the DualSense or headset, players can ask their PS5 to find and open games or apps and control playback while watching or listening to something.

This is certainly a hefty beta, and will hopefully make the PS5 social experience much smoother when it becomes available. The beta will start on PS4 and PS5 on February 9 and will officially launch later in 2022.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese
Gaming Staff Writer
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
You need to try PlayStation VR2’s most psychedelic game yet
Key art for Akka Arrh shows psychedelic images.

You know that it's a busy year for gaming when a project by an industry legend launches with hardly any fanfare. That's exactly what happened in February 2023 with Akka Arrh. Created by Jeff Minter and his eccentric studio Llamasoft, the neon-tinted shooter is a remake of a 1982 Atari game that never saw the light of day after being deemed too difficult. Minter got the greenlight to revive the project, bringing it to life as a retro arcade shooter built in his unmistakable style.

While the project was exciting for game historians, it didn't exactly crack into the mainstream (it only has 37 user reviews on Steam). Thankfully, Akka Arrh getting a second chance to shine this week as its new PlayStation 5 version adds PlayStation VR2 support. While that might not be enough to make it a commercial hit, it does give PSVR2 owners a good reason to dust off their headset and check out a delightfully oddball project from one of gaming's true visionaries.
It's a trip
Akka Arrh is the rare example of a game that might be easier to explain on paper than in practice. In this throwback arcade shooter, players control a stationary ship that's tasked with protecting pods from attacking aliens. To fend off foes, players drop bombs that blow up in a different geometric pattern on each level's map. Every time an enemy touches that blast radius, it blows up in the same pattern, chaining to other enemies. The goal is to keep an uninterrupted chain going as long as possible by using a limited number of bullets to knock out foes that can't be destroyed by bombs and grabbing power-ups by hovering the cursor over them.

Read more
You need to play this charming indie before it leaves PlayStation Plus
Tchia wears a crown in Tchia.

Tchia will leave the PlayStation Plus Premium and Extra game catalog on March 19. And you really need to play this charming open-world adventure that I called "a new coming-of-age classic" in a four-star review before it's gone.

Released in March 2023, Awaceb and Kepler Interactive's Tchia is an open-world indie adventure heavily inspired by The Legend of Zelda titles like Breath of the Wild and The Wind Waker. It stands out by transporting players to a world inspired by the Pacific islands of New Caledonia and immersing them in its vibrant culture and mythology while telling a captivating coming-of-age story.

Read more
PC compatibility for the PlayStation VR2 is being tested by Sony
Playstation VR2 headset on a PlayStation-themed wallpaper.

To celebrate the first anniversary of the PlayStation VR2, Sony revealed a new batch of games coming to its virtual reality headset and confirmed that it's testing a feature that would let people play PC VR games on their PSVR2.

"We’re pleased to share that we are currently testing the ability for PS VR2 players to access additional games on PC to offer even more game variety in addition to the PSVR2 titles available through PS5," the PlayStation Blog post about PSVR2's first anniversary teases. "We hope to make this support available in 2024, so stay tuned for more updates."

Read more