The Sony Access Controller Is a Beautiful Addition for All Gamers

i’ll be honest, when Sony announced its accessibility controller “Project Leonardo” at CES in January 2023, I was underwhelmed. I thought it was too small for disabled gamers like me. I didn’t understand how a player was supposed to reach the “sundial” of buttons. It was fated to be another company’s benevolent but failed attempt at inclusion. Then I tried the review unit Sony sent me.

Project Leonardo has become the Access Controller and will retail at $89.99 starting December 6. (“Leonardo”—for Leonardo Da Vinci—would have been a way cooler name than the clinical “Access Controller.”) Sony worked with nonprofits AbleGamers, SpecialEffect, Stack-Up, and other disability experts to create the Access Controller. Unfortunately, it only works with the PlayStation 5 and cannot utilize PS Remote Play. Using the Access Controller for PC gaming or daily computing tasks would have been a nice bonus.

The Access Controller comes with 23 rounded, curved, and flat button caps, as well as two thumbstick caps and a nob for a joystick. I would have liked the thumbsticks/joystick to screw in or be more firm, in case I wholly gripped and mashed it like in a fighting game. The button caps are held by magnets and are released by the press of a latch, but this never caused me difficulty despite being a quadriplegic with stiff fingers on my right hand and ataxia, or uncontrollability, in my left.

But I don’t have to plug buttons or foot pedals into 3.5-millimeter jacks. I can’t stress enough how nice it is that a player can use Sony’s button caps and joysticks at no extra cost—unlike the Xbox Adaptive Controller or a pricey custom controller. If you do need plug-ins for your setup, though, Logitech will offer a kit containing wired buttons for $79.99 in January.

You can create up to 30 button configurations on your system, give each one a name for a particular game, and assign three to your controller. Using the handy loops to pull sections open, I unboxed the controller and peripherals using one hand.

One design element that Sony wanted on the Access Controller was to have all the buttons available on one plane. The DualSense controller has buttons on the front horizontal plane and shoulder buttons on a vertical plane. The Access Controller does have all of its nine buttons on one plane, but the holes in which you can stick a label are on the bottom of the buttons, making it hard to see which button you must press. If the holes were closer to the top, they could easily be seen no matter the controller’s position.

One of the other concerns I had from pictures of the Access Controller was that it would move around when I used it. After going hands-on with it, I was happy to discover that it is the perfect size to hold in two hands, and the adjustable joystick can make it wider or narrower for more comfort. However, Sony designed it not to be held, so if you have to set the Access Controller on a flat surface, it has rubber feet (although I would suggest a Dycem sheet) to prevent sliding, and if you need a stronger stabilizer, you can mount it to almost anything, including a wheelchair.

The Access Controller’s only competitor, the Xbox Adaptive Controller, acts as more of a hub for ports to plug in peripherals and other buttons. This may have been the only glaring misstep by Sony in this case. The Access Controller only has four 3.5-millimeter jacks for additional buttons, whereas the Adaptive Controller has 19. An additional 10 to 12 ports could fit around the Access Controller’s perimeter, and even if a player uses it at different angles, the peripherals’ long cables give a player freedom of movement and placement. This might be a moot point, though, if future innovations like PlayStation Link (Sony’s new audio connectivity standard) bring wireless peripherals to the Access Controller via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Regardless, if you have two Access Controllers—which are possible to connect together with “Collaborative Use,” Sony’s answer to Xbox’s Copilot, which allows you to use two controllers at the same time as a single unit—a player could have two giant buttons, eight 3.5-millimeter jacks, 16 programmable buttons, and two joysticks to control character movement and the camera. For a cheaper option, you can also gain a joystick and extra customizable buttons by connecting the Access Controller with the DualSense controller that comes with the PS5.

I used the Access Controller with one and two hands and played some games with just one Access Controller. However, for games that require a player to use all of the buttons or complex combinations, you pretty much have to pair two controllers. It was a seamless experience using the Access Controller with the DualSense, and using two Access Controllers made me even more efficient. If peripherals aren’t crucial to your setup, the Access Controller is a fantastic out-of-the-box option.

These may sound like outlandish suggestions, but a touchpad and a “sip ’n’ puff” function are puzzling omissions. Considering that PlayStation’s DualSense controller already has a touchpad, why couldn’t that big button have the option to become one on the Access Controller? Or, since the PlayStation app allows you to connect your phone to control the system, why not add the ability to use your phone as a touchpad in games? Either way, this would grant users two directional pads. In the same vein, when the DualSense first came out, headlines and YouTube videos touted how players could blow into the microphone to perform specific tasks. It seems like this tool should be included in something called the Access Controller. A microphone would also provide more audio feedback for blind and hard-of-hearing gamers.

Sony rightfully believes the haptics on its DualSense add such a layer of immersion that every PS5 since launch has come with Astro’s Playroom, the tech demo/video game that helps introduce you to the features of the console and its controller. This game expertly showcases the DualSense’s haptic abilities. The Access Controller does not have this feature. It is understandable, because a lot of disabled gamers don't like or can't use haptics—but some can. The option would have been nice to have, especially since the Access Controller seems to have enough room to fit a haptic motor.

On the software side, there are a couple of features to get excited about. First, a player can map two button presses to one single input. For instance, if a game has a combo attack, a player can map Jump and Attack to one button that is easy to press. But the most helpful software addition may be the ability to toggle buttons on and off for a long press. So if a game requires a player to hold a button for an extended period of time—like the ignition button in Gran Turismo 7—the player can turn on the button’s toggle, press it twice, and the system will recognize this as a long press.

The Access Controller does have one software issue. When a player sets it up, they are asked to orient the joystick in one of the four cardinal directions. There is no option to orient the joystick at a diagonal. Although you can rotate the joystick wherever you want, a player still has to adhere to four directional parameters. This issue could be fixed with a firmware update, though.

Also, if we’re talking about accessibility, it would have been encouraging to see Sony offer a tab in the PlayStation app dedicated to the Access Controller. In the future, this is where disabled gamers could make their Access Controller or PS5 compatible with voice commands or eye and head tracking. With the infrastructure of the PlayStation app soundly established, it would be convenient if all of those software features existed in one place when you bought an Access Controller.

Sony’s Access Controller will forever be linked to and compared with the Xbox Adaptive Controller—and that's a good thing. There has never before been a time when the two biggest gaming companies offered a first-party controller designed from the ground up for disabled gamers. I point out the critiques to demonstrate how far the industry has to go to make disabled gaming on par with abled gaming. But over the past five years, the evolution of accessibility in gaming is something every engineer and developer should be proud of.

Time will tell, but the biggest asset of the Access Controller may be its longevity. Diseases and injuries evolve over time, and our bodies have to adapt to these changes. Because the Access Controller’s joystick and buttons can be moved and used in so many different ways, a disabled or abled-body gamer could alter the product when their body changes. Besides more ports, Sony has built a foundational piece of inclusive hardware that it can iterate off of, and with some updates to the software, the Access Controller could truly be revolutionary.

Video games can transport someone to unimaginable worlds and produce novel experiences for that player. That’s why it really is a shame to deny anyone this artistic medium. When attending middle school, I gamed all the time, then I stopped in high school and college, and recently, I’ve followed the industry closely but have played sporadically because of my dexterity issues. In an instant, the Access Controller’s ingenuity solved my issues and opened gaming back up for me. The only problem now is finding the time to play.