PS5 UI Finally Unveiled: Here's Everything New

Sony has officially unveiled the PS5's user interface a few weeks before the console is due to arrive. You can check it out in the video below to see how it differs from the PS4's UI and what to expect when you boot up your system for the first time. You'll likely be able to spend a lot more time playing and less time on the menus, and it's not just because of the NVMe SSD in the console.

Sony says it built the PS5's UI specifically to take advantage of 4K displays, and when you first start it up, you'll see a blinking PlayStation logo and must press the PS button on the DualSense controller to reach the main menu. In this respect, it's very similar to the PS4's UI. The home screen itself looks it will be very customizable, as well. A game-specific background can be put on it, just like with PS4.

It's a very different approach from Xbox--rather than reinventing the UI, the Series X, S, and One all have the same UI, which was recently updated.

PS5 Control Center

In the demonstration, Sony loads right from rest mode into Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and the console's control center is located across the bottom of the screen. You pull it up by tapping the PS button once. All of your icons are then available.

It resembles a taskbar you'd see on a computer, and it gives you access to things like audio levels, power, controller battery level, your microphone, and notifications without having to exit the game. You can also check on a download's status this way, enabling you to keep playing something else instead of pausing it to reach the main menu as you do on PS5.

PS5 In-Game Help

Via the "activities" cards displayed for specific games, you'll also be able to jump directly into levels or challenges rather than loading up the game from scratch. If you have a PS Plus membership, you'll also see official in-game help in your activities. You can even pin video walkthroughs to your screen so you can keep watching while you play the challenge. Not all games will support these, but we expect at least Sony's exclusive offerings to use the feature.

PS5 Sharing

Sharing features have been beefed up, as well. Players in your party can share their screen, letting you view a private Let's Play, and you can even do this in picture-in-picture mode while you play your own game. The new Create button gives you a previous of your screenshot in a menu at the bottom of the screen, and you can also easily switch between capturing video and images. Recently-captured media will show up in a card on the home screen, and you can then send them to social networks like Twitter or directly to a party. Using the microphone, you can even use voice-to-text to type a message alongside the image. There is also a voice recording function. However, this is only used for reporting harassment and can save the last five minutes of your conversation for Sony's team to review. Sony will not otherwise be listening to anything you are saying over voice chat.

The PS5 and PS5 Digital Edition both launch on November 12. They are extremely difficult to find, but you can test your luck with our PS5 preorder guide. Nearly every PS4 game will be supported, as well, with only a handful of exceptions. Even the initial list of unsupported games is shrinking as certain developers pledge to release updates.