You Can (Once Again) Use Classic PlayStation Themes on Your PS5
Back in December , Sony introduced themes for the first time on PS5 . While the selection was far from the variety offered by other consoles, they were still tempting: these themes were modeled after the user interface designs of all previous PlayStation consoles, including the PSOne, PS2, PS3 and PS4.
These themes are honestly pretty cool. They use each console’s unique sound design, such as the clicks you hear when switching between menu options. If you ever owned a PS3, you’d probably love the wavy background this PS5 theme adds here. Likewise, PS2 fans will appreciate the second-generation menu shapes. If you had a particular favorite, you could add a little nostalgia to your PS5 experience—at least on the home screen.
However, the experience was short-lived. At the end of January , the company decided to remove these themes , to the disappointment of many ’90s and ’00s kids. Luckily, there was a silver lining to this situation: Sony stated that the themes would return in an undetermined number of months after some work behind the scenes.
As it turns out, that number of months was almost exactly three: Starting Thursday, April 24, classic PlayStation themes are returning to PS5, Sony announced in a blog post on Wednesday. The company says the feature is now called “Appearance” and features four nostalgic themes – now without the 30th anniversary branding.
How to Access Classic PlayStation Themes
These themes appear as part of Sony’s latest system update for PS5. To access them, you’ll need to make sure your console is fully up to date.
To do this, go to Settings > System > System Software > System Software Update & Settings . If you haven’t fully updated, you’ll see “Update available.” Select Update System Software and you’re done.
Once updated, return to Settings, then select Appearance and Sound . “Default” is the default theme for PS5, but you can select PlayStation, PlayStation 2 , PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4.
The latest PS5 update brings another new feature.
In addition to these new themes, Sony is also introducing “Audio Focus”, a new setting that allows you to boost quiet sounds in games when using headphones with PS5. You can configure four different categories: Low tone (motors and rumble); Voices (voice chats, in-game dialogues, mid-frequency sounds; high-pitched sounds (footsteps and metallic sounds); and soft sounds (quiet sounds at different frequencies).
Once you update to the latest version, these options will appear in Settings > Sounds > Volume > Audio Focus . For each, you can choose whether to adjust sounds for the left and right channels, as well as adjust the overall gain level. When you’re done, you can check your settings using the Audio Preview option in this settings menu to know if you need to make changes.