Sony Reveals Customizable Accessibility Controller Project Leonardo

Announced at CES, Sony has unveiled its new customizable accessibility controller kit for use with the PlayStation 5.

The kit, titled Project Leonardo, is designed to address challenges often faced by many players with limited motor control, including difficulty holding a controller for long periods, accurately pressing small clusters of buttons or triggers, or positioning thumbs and fingers optimally on a standard controller.

It includes a kit of swappable components, such as a variety of analog stick caps and buttons in different shapes and sizes. Players will be able to adjust the controller layout in order to suit their preference, strength or range of motion.

In a blog post, SIE Senior Vice President of Platform Experience Hideaki Nishino said that the kit had been developed "with key contributions from accessibility experts, community members, and game developers."

"Through conversations with accessibility experts and incredible organizations like AbleGamers, SpecialEffect and Stack Up, we’ve designed a highly configurable controller that works in tandem with many third-party accessibility accessories and integrates with the PS5 console to open up new ways of gaming."

On the PS5 console players will have options to tailor their Project Leonardo experience:

Button mapping

• The controller’s buttons can be programmed to any supported function and multiple buttons can be mapped to the same function. Conversely, players can map two functions (like “R2” + “L2”) onto the same button.

Control profiles

• Players can store their programmed button settings as control profiles and easily switch between them by pressing the profile button.
• Up to three control profiles can be stored and accessed by the player from their PS5 console at any time.

At the time of writing, Project Leonardo is currently in development. A release date for the kit, and a price, has yet to be announced by Sony.