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PS5 Beta Introduces Discord Voice Chat, VRR support for 1440p, and more

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As the PlayStation 5 console continues to evolve, we’re excited to deliver new features to our community. Today, we’re rolling out the next PS5 system software beta with a number of fan-requested features, including Discord voice chat and Variable Refresh Rate support for 1440p resolution. We’re also introducing a variety of UX, accessibility and social feature enhancements that make playing with your friends or enjoying your gaming experiences on the PS5 console easier than ever.

Invited beta participants from the U.S., Canada, Japan, U.K., Germany, and France will receive an email with instructions on how to download the beta and get started. As with previous betas, some features may not make it into the final version or may see significant changes when the final system update releases globally in the coming months.

Here’s a look at some of the new features: 

New Social Features 

  • Join a Discord Voice Chat on Your PS5 Console. You can now join Discord voice chats on your PS5 console and easily chat with friends on most other gaming platforms. To start, link your Discord and PlayStation Network accounts from your PS5 console following these steps*. Then, use the Discord app on your mobile device or computer to get a Discord voice chat going on your PS5 console (make sure your Discord app is updated to the latest version). You can also let your Discord friends see when you’re online and what you’re playing.
  • Note: if you’ve linked your PlayStation Network and Discord accounts in the past to display what game you’re playing, you’ll need to link your accounts again on your PS5 console to grant the new permissions needed for Discord voice chat.
PlayStation 5 UI screenshot showing Discord voice chat

PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for February: Evil Dead: The Game, OlliOlliWorld, Destiny 2: Beyond Light, Mafia: Definitive Edition

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Today we’re happy to reveal the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for February. Take on demonic Deadites in asymmetrical multiplayer Evil Dead: The Game, grind and trick your way through the vibrant world of Radlandia in OlliOlliWorld and live the life of a Prohibition-era gangster with Mafia: The Definitive Edition. In addition to these titles, Destiny 2: Beyond Light joins the lineup as a bonus game this month.  

All four titles will be available to PlayStation Plus Essential, Extra and Premium members from Tuesday, February 7 until Monday March 6. The PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium lineups for February will be announced soon. 

Let’s take a closer look at the Monthly Games. 

Evil Dead: The Game | PS4, PS5 

Step into the shoes of Ash Williams or his friends from the iconic Evil Dead franchise and work together in a game loaded with over-the-top co-op and PvP multiplayer action. Play as a team of four survivors, exploring, looting, managing your fear, and finding key items to

PS5 Creators: How Forspoken harnesses PS5’s power

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Athia is a huge open-world brimming with places to explore, creatures to battle, and mysteries to unravel. Luminous Productions taps into the power of PlayStation to make this happen, from the magical flames erupting from Frey’s hands in combat to the speed at which she fast-travels on the expansive world map.

Now that it’s easier than ever for players to get their hands on PS5s and enter the world of Forspoken, Takeshi Aramaki, Head of Luminous Productions and Forspoken Director shares some insights on how the Luminous Productions team harness PS5 to bring this adventure to life:

PlayStation Blog: What were your first impressions when first learning about the power and capabilities of the PS5, from a developer perspective?

Takeshi Aramaki: With the latest GPU that supports ray tracing and a high-speed SSD that allows data to be read instantly, I felt that it was going to bring significant changes to game development as a whole. Being able to display assets on screen without the need for load times would create new gaming experiences. Once we actually began developing for it, the biggest surprise was how easily it was to develop for.

The DualSense wireless controller offers a unique level of immersion thanks to its haptics and adaptive triggers. How did your team approach DualSense controller implementation when developing this PS5 game?

The DualSense is such a unique controller, so we wanted to create a game that would allow players to feel and experience it to the fullest. As Forspoken is a game we designed for the PS5, we decided to assign L2 and R2 for casting magic so you can feel the feedback from the Adaptive Triggers. There are over 100 spells in Forspoken, and we tuned the force feedback for every single one so that each spell looks and feels unique. In addition, the haptics feedback creates a realistic sensation of traversing at high speeds when using Magic Parkour.

Forspoken features extremely quick fast-travel in its fantasy open world. How did the development team harness PS5’s power to make this happen?

The SSD makes the PS5 about 100 times faster than the PS4, so that by itself is plenty, but it also makes use of Oodle Kraken and Oodle Texture for data compression. On top of that, the PS5 also handles memory allocation and decompression on the hardware side. The CPU processing of that data then became the bottleneck, so we made over 100 adjustments to our Luminous Engine in order to realize these read speeds.

Forspoken features a dazzling array of magical visual effects and character animation for Frey during travel and traversal. How did the team tap into PS5’s power to deliver this rich visual performance?

In Forspoken, we aimed for a visual expression unlike any other. The GPU handles the dedicated shader for the magic visual effects, and the CPU handles the numerous processing needs for Magic Parkour. The PS5’s capabilities were more than enough for what we wanted to do; in fact, it’s so powerful that it encouraged us to add even more to the visual effects. Also, a lot of memory is typically needed to achieve this level of expression, but PS5 development tools are so easy to work with and allowed us to work faster than before. That gave us plenty of time to optimize the memory and process load needed Forspoken’s rich visuals.

Forspoken is available now on PlayStation 5.

Critics’ Choice promotion comes to PlayStation Store 

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Critically acclaimed games take the stage for PlayStation Store’s newest promotion. From Wednesday February 1 for a limited time* you can enjoy deep discounts on the likes of NBA 2K23, Need for Speed Unbound and Dying Light 2 Stay Human.