PS5 lets you invert the camera controls in games automatically

I’ll never know exactly what it’s like to be left-handed, but I do have an idea, because I’m one of the many gamers — albeit a minority, apparently — who inverts the y-axis. And I’m thrilled to report that at long last, we’re being acknowledged by Sony with the PlayStation 5.

Folks like us loved one specific Xbox 360 option: the ability to have the console automatically tell games that we wanted to play with an inverted y-axis. This let us avoid the hassle of having to flip that switch ourselves in the options of every individual game, making our lives a little easier and letting us get into the action a little more quickly.

It was a small but much-appreciated nod to the dozens of us inverters out there. Curiously, though, this setting disappeared when Microsoft moved on to the Xbox One. And the company recently confirmed to Kotaku that the setting won’t be available on the Xbox Series X, either. The Xbox One and Xbox Series X do allow users to invert the right analog stick at a system level, but that’s not a desirable solution, since it flips the stick’s function across the entire console.

Thankfully, Sony has picked up the baton that Microsoft dropped seven years ago. The PS5 lets people do exactly what the Xbox 360 offered back in 2005 — and goes further, offering the option to invert the x-axis as well as the y-axis, and to do so separately in first- and third-person games. This is all part of a group of presets that users can change at the system level, with the console applying the settings “to games that support this feature,” according to the menu.

In my testing, the invert y-axis flag worked perfectly in Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Astro’s Playroom, and Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition — I was able to boot them up and start playing immediately, without having to visit the in-game options menu first. The flag did not work in Bugsnax, a PS5 launch title from indie studio Young Horses; I still had to invert the y-axis in that game’s settings myself.

Here’s how to set these options on your PS5.

Head to the system settings by hitting the gear icon in the upper right zone of the dashboard. To get to that area, which is known as the Utilities section, press the triangle button from anywhere else on the dashboard. You can also simply navigate to to that spot with the D-pad or left stick. (To reach the dashboard in the first place, hold the PlayStation button.)

Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon

Scroll down to the Saved Data and Game/App Settings section of the settings menu, which is pretty far down the list. From there, head to the Game Presets subsection.

As you can see, the PS5 offers separate camera presets for first- and third-person games. And for each of them, you can choose to invert the y-axis and/or x-axis. Each page provides a helpful little clip illustrating what it means to invert the camera controls, too, accompanied by an animated DualSense controller.

Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon

Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon

While we’ll have to see how many PS5 games end up supporting this feature in the long term, it’s great that Sony thought to include it in the first place. Inverters, rise up!