PS5 Exclusive Astro Bot Gets Limited Edition DualSense Controller

Astro Bot is getting a limited edition PlayStation 5 controller, Sony has announced.

In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Nicolas Doucet, studio head at developer Team Asobi, offered a first look at the Astro Bot Limited Edition DualSense Wireless Controller, inspired by the design of Astro’s Dual Speeder spaceship from PlayStation’s upcoming platforming celebration.

The controller design features Astro’s blue accents on the handles and buttons, carved-in, sci-fi lines, and Atro’s pair of eyes on the touch pad.

Starting Friday, August 9 at 7am PT in the U.S. and 10am local time in the U.K., France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Portugal, players can pre-order the DualSense wireless controller – Astro Bot Limited Edition through direct.playstation.com, as well as from select retailers, priced $79.99 / €79.99 / £69.99 / ¥11,980. The Astro Bot controller launches alongside the game itself on September 6.

In the blog post, Doucet outlined how Astro Bot uses the features of the DualSense.

“First, as many of you expect from an Astro game, you can feel the surfaces that Astro runs and slides on, from grass, sand, metal to more squishy textures or water,” Doucet said. “That was already the case with Astro’s Playroom, but we have increased the number of textures you can feel through the controller.”

“Next, we doubled down on the adaptive triggers combined with haptic feedback, by tying them tightly to Astro’s new powers. For example, when using Barkster, the bulldog Jetpack, you can feel the thruster ratting against your finger in synch with the animation, giving a very dynamic and immersive feeling. Every new power up has been given that same special treatment so you will be able to experience various expressions through your fingers.

“Finally, given the number of enemies and boss battles we added to this new adventure, it was important to work on battle and impacts by combining all of the above. Whether it’s stretching, pounding or pummeling hard surfaces, there are many new types of impacts that can be experienced in Astro Bot.

“And of course, we could not finish this post without mentioning the Dual Speeder, one of Astro’s most recurrent gadgets, allowing him to fly into various planets. The Dual Speeder makes full use of motion control, adaptive triggers and haptic feedback.”

Check out IGN’s own interview with Doucet from Summer Game Fest right here, as well as our full hands-on preview of Astro Bot.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].