This November 25, our liminal-spaces fever dream game Pools is coming to PlayStation 5 and PlayStation VR2. To say we’re excited is an understatement of the year; we’re actually buzzing about the prospect of seeing our game coming out in a few days of this post being published. Apart from seeing our game appear on a console that a lot of us have grown up with, what really excites us is seeing how people will react to the PlayStation 5 and PS VR2 specific features that we implemented. That is something we’re really excited for, and I thought that it would be a pretty cool thing to tell you more about in this very post. So, what makes the PS5 and PS VR2 versions of Pools special? Come with me and I’ll show you.
Immersive DualSense controller features
We wanted to make the experience in Pools as real and immersive as it can possibly be (short of somehow making a chlorine smell come from the DualSense controller). To give you a feeling of immersion, we made the most of the DualSense controller haptic feedback. First, we wanted to give each surface that you walk on its own “feeling”. You can feel subtle vibrations on each footstep you’ll take, and every surface has its own haptic feel and intensity. In some places, your footsteps will feel light and normal, while in some you will feel resistance. Walking in water also creates different types of feedback depending on your depth and movement speed. It might sound like a small thing, but it really helps you to be “there”, almost smelling that chlorine in the pools.
Controller haptics are also used to accentuate unique locations and events in the game. For example, at one point you may come across a seemingly bottomless pit from which you can hear a distant snarl-like sound emanating. You will feel the echoing sound through your controller speaker, while the haptic effect intensity scales naturally based on distance to that pit. While creating these types of haptic moments, we were aware that some of you may want to adjust them to suit your tastes. So haptic intensity can be adjusted or toggled on/off in the settings menu according to your personal taste.
Making the most of the PS VR2
When we started our plans on bringing Pools to PS5, we decided early on that the PS VR2 mode had to make the most of the features. Once again, we have this cool hardware that can suck you into the world of our game just that little bit more – let’s make full use of it! The PS VR2 version is a new custom version of the game, tailored directly for the hardware. It takes full advantage of eye-tracked foveated rendering, so that we can give you maximum visual quality and performance. This is a really great feature as it allows us to make Pools look as real as it can be, while keeping a great performance at the same time – at least 90 FPS without reprojection. It’s all about making the game look good and play good.
Now, although it might seem a bit banal to say this, we are extremely proud of the PS VR2 version. Between you and me, we had to rebuild most of the visual aspects of the game from the ground up in order to achieve our target performance. Pretty much, we wanted the foveated rendering to work as best as it could, and in order to do that, we needed to create a custom solution for our water visuals. So we locked ourselves in, got deep into the code, and we’ve learned a ton on shader programming. It was a lot of hard work, but we’re really proud of what we achieved. The whole studio hopes that when you submerge, walk in, or just gaze at the water effects, you’ll think “hey, that looks nice”. If you do, it’s all been worth it to us.
Thanks so much for spending a bit of time with us and seeing our thought process on how we can make the Pools experience as immersive as it can be on PlayStation 5 and PS VR2. Also, it’s worth mentioning that you’ll only need to buy the game once, and you’ll get access to both modes.
Pools is coming out in just a few days, on November 25, and you can play the demo right now on PlayStation Store. We hope to see you there.
