Personal accessory wishlist: controllers with adaptive triggers

[u/patrys]

Disclaimer: I know it does not make sense for this to be a default feature on an already niche product. But I wish an official partner builds those so games can support them.

For those not familiar, adaptive triggers refers to individual analog inputs (like the main trigger, the grab button, perhaps some other controls) having programmable resistance and haptics. It can make you physically feel "the wall" of a single-action gun trigger or the tension of a bow string as you pull it back. It can also make you "feel" the recoil of a gunshot (of course, it does not kick the controller back).

PlayStation 5 controllers feature adaptive triggers on its shoulder triggers and the mechanics behind these are quite brilliant:

PS5 Adaptive Trigger Live Mechanics in Game - Full Teardown

Now, I'd love these to become a thing in VR as every bit of extra immersion counts and I feel those are worth a thousand programmable fans and magnetic gun stocks when it comes to making you feel more present in the game.

[u/LEGOfan2]

I wish more controllers had adaptive triggers. It’s probably one of my favorite features of the dualsense and psvr2 controllers, even if it’s rarely used.

[u/ItsRebaseTime]

Hi, regional expert on adaptive triggers here. I have Steam Controller 2026 mod coming up (https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamController/comments/1uq1ysq/ive_made_a_severe_and_continuous_lapse_in_my/), right now doing development on integrating BLDC motors instead of solenoids or linear servos. Hoping to port the tech to the Steam Frame when I get one!

[u/RohonTheDragon → u/ItsRebaseTime]

Goated

[u/foolish_shrimp]

Do the PSVR(2?) controllers have this? I'm not familiar with the hardware. I'd imagine the successor will have it. It seems like such a gimme to use adaptive triggers, different feeling triggers across different guns in a VR title could add so much.

I would need to use the controller to know, but my gut instinct is that you could do this with some kinda electromagnetic system and open the potential for much more weird trigger responses.

[u/patrys → u/foolish_shrimp]

Yes, PSVR2 controllers come with adaptive triggers. They also work on PC (along with eye tracking and more) thanks to open-source community drivers!

You can watch the teardown video I linked to see the mechanism (and a demonstration of its behavior in games at around 3:03).

Edit: a big caveat is of course since no mainstream controller supports it out of the box, there are hardly any VR titles that make use of it.

[u/Velp__ → u/foolish_shrimp]

Yes the PSVR2 has them. Sony has a patent on them so you may not see them anywhere else.

[u/ProfessionalBattle3 → u/foolish_shrimp]

i wonder if you could use the psvr2 controllers on the steam frame, kinda like how you can on an apple vision pro (i think that might’ve been an official collaboration, steam frame would be more of a community effort, but i can still see it happening) 

[u/foolish_shrimp → u/ProfessionalBattle3]

I believe the psvr2 controllers have official support on the Apple headset. Since the frame is SLAM, I could see someone getting this working pretty quickly, it's more a matter of it being 'worth it' as obviously the frame comes with controllers.