Baldur’s Gate 3 has officially launched on PS5 today, giving PlayStation players the chance to play the critically acclaimed new RPG from Larian Studios. While CRPGs tend to best be played with a mouse and keyboard, console players worried how it would all translate to PS5, especially with hefty item management. A new PlayStation Blog post now gives us an indication of how the game works on PS5 with a DualSense controller and vouching from personal experience, it still plays great.
Larian Studios product manager Emily Gera detailed the DualSense features as well as controller support for Baldur’s Gate 3 on PlayStation. According to Gera, the complex RPG was made for PS5 since “day one” and clearly a lot of thought went into making sure it functions well with a controller. Of course, this includes a radial menu or wheel that PS5 players can quickly access and even fully customise with various items, spells and actions.
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Gera talked about streamlining the game’s interface and adapting it to the DualSense controller, turning the original UI menus into a radial wheel that’s much easier to use for console players:
“We took its interface and streamlined it, turning our original UI into radial menus which felt more intuitive to use with a controller. Your most essential tools can be accessed at the pull of a trigger button, which brings up a large radial for access to your map, journal, spellbook, character sheet, combat log, alchemy, short rests, long rests, and your camp, as well as your level-up screen and Illithid Powers skill tree.”
Having played roughly 20 hours of Baldur’s Gate 3 so far on PS5, I can personally vouch for the excellent work done to make the overwhelming UI better suited and almost simplified for controllers without compromising the experience. PC players share a similar sentiment for those who used a controller to play the game.
By far, the biggest change comes in the form of your character’s movement. On console, players can directly control their avatar like a standard third-person game but there’s also an option to toggle the point-and-click style movement of the PC version. Director Swen Vincke said that the studio even dropped the camera angle lower for the third-person perspective to make it feel more natural since it closely resembles other games like The Witcher 3.
As far as smaller DualSense features, Larian Studios also confirmed that the PS5 controller’s light bar colours will correspond with the spells being cast. Thanks to haptic feedback, “moment of heightened pressure” will also be felt alongside the brightness intensity on the controller. Furthermore, slight touches to the adaptive triggers will only reveal the radial menu partially while a harder press will reveal the full menu. Adaptive triggers can also be felt while attacking, with added pressure for bows and sword swings.
In related news, Larian Studios recently stated that a bug in the game made companions aggressively horny which was a mistake since Vincke wanted relationships to feel more natural as they developed with the characters. If you’re jumping into the PS5 version, be aware of some potential frame rate problems and check out the full trophy list as well.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is currently available for PC and PS5. Larian Studios confirmed that an Xbox version will be coming this year, but no release date has been mentioned yet.
Source: PlayStation Blog
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