The PS5 debuted with numerous features from the PS4 that were missing. A few have returned over the years, but one that many are unsure about is themes. These might be acquired, downloaded, purchased, or included with specific games, giving your home screen a new design and background soundtrack connected to various games or topics. This made personalizing your home screen even more enjoyable. Is this, however, a characteristic of the PS5? Here’s if you can use custom themes or change the background of your new console.

Does the PS5 have themes?

No, there are no themes for the PS5. When you highlight a game or app on your home screen, the background changes to imagery relating to that game and displays more information about it. While far from perfect, it is the closest we are going to get to the PS4 themes.

Again, due to the PS5 dynamically changing the background depending on what you’re currently looking at, there’s no way to alter your background at this time. Since the background is constantly changing, even if you had a custom image, it would always be changing as you cycled through games. There are a few other ways you can customize your PS5, however, unless Sony gives us the option with an update, there’s no way to set a theme on your PS5.

Browsing through and uncovering the hidden PS5 features will give you other ways to make the console your own, though. From setting custom button assignments to booting up your console from your phone or tablet, and even controlling it using your voice, there are a lot of different ways you can interact with the console that aren’t enabled out of the box.

Meanwhile, Sony just launched its second-generation virtual reality headset, called the PlayStation VR2, or PSVR2 for short. It’s shaping to be a promising device, though not one without its share of shortfalls (it costs more than the PS5 itself, for one, and doesn’t have the best suite of launch titles). The reason we’re talking about it now, though, is because, like the PS5, you can’t change the background or use themes on the PSVR2 — but you probably could have guessed that.

Since PS5 doesn’t allow you to make any changes to its dynamic wallpapers or backgrounds, it’s time to be creative to get what you want. You can try the following workaround method to replace the original wallpaper with your favorite image.

First, you need to search for new wallpaper via the built-in browser. Here’s how to do it:

1. Press your controller’s PlayStation button to initiate the action.
2. Navigate to “Game Base” at the bottom. It will lead to the “Friends” menu.
3. Choose the message icon.
4. Click the “Search-Browser.”
5. Type Bing.com (or Google.com) in the chat box.
6. Hit R2 on your controller to submit it as a message.
7. Tap the Bing.com message to launch it on the built-in browser.
8. Once Bing.com has successfully loaded in the browser, select “Images” at the top.
9. Go to the search box and type the name of your favorite wallpaper.
10. Press R2 to start searching the wallpaper.

The next step is to edit and save the new wallpaper:

1. Choose a wallpaper from the list of search results. If you have a 4K TV, try to choose a wallpaper with a resolution of 3840×2160 pixels or something comparable to prevent pixels from tearing on the screen.
2. The selected wallpaper will show in the browser as an image.
3. Make a screenshot by pressing and holding the create (or share) button on your controller.
4. You’ll see a screenshot sign on the upper right of the screen when you manage to take the screenshot.
5. Go to the screenshot menu by holding down the create button. Select your screenshot.
6. Use the editing feature to modify your screenshot as desired.
7. Crop the image to remove unwanted elements.
8. Click the zoom button to enlarge the screenshot and crop it.
9. Use the left key to enlarge the screenshot until it fills the box and leave the unwanted elements out.
10. Select “Done” when you’ve finished cropping.
11. Click “Save” to complete the process and save the modifications you’ve made.

Finally, here’s how to replace the original wallpaper with the new one (continuation from the previous steps):

1. Choose “Replace Original” to save and make your screenshot as wallpaper on PS5.
2. Hit the PlayStation button on your controller, and navigate to the profile menu.
3. Select “Profile.”
4. Tap “Edit Profile.” You’ll see a list of options.
5. Click “Change Image.” Select your edited screenshot as your PS5 wallpaper.
6. Hit “Save” to replace the built-in wallpaper.
7. Return to the profile and see if the PS5 wallpaper has changed to the new one.

Despite the lack of customizable themes, PS5 is the latest addition to the gaming world that takes the experience to a whole new level. With its sleek design and advanced features, PS5 has become the go-to console for gamers everywhere. Here are five reasons that will make you fall in love with it:

Stunning Graphics

The PS5’s graphics are among the best in the current generation of gaming consoles. Its powerful hardware and custom-designed GPU deliver smooth frame rates and high refresh rates, providing an immersive and enjoyable gaming experience. Most games can work at 4K/60fps, and some of them can even achieve 4K/120fps.

Remote Play

Remote Play allows you to stream and play PS5 games, navigate the menus, access the home screen of your console, and switch between games on any suitable device using an internet connection or mobile data.

Read Also: Does PS5 Have Nvidia?

You can continue playing your game on a different device, such as your phone, picking up where you left off on the PlayStation console connected to your TV. It’s also possible to start a new game directly from the app without using a TV.

Customizable DualSense Controller

The new DualSense Controller offers haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, providing a more delightful gaming experience. For instance, it can simulate various sensations like the feeling of driving over rough terrain or the sensation of raindrops hitting the controller. In a shooting game, the triggers may also become harder to press when you’re trying to shoot with a heavy weapon.

DualSense Controller is also highly customizable, from the layout of the buttons to the intensity of the vibration and stick sensitivity. You can even modify the controller itself, such as swapping the stick caps and back buttons.

SSD and Expandable Storage

PS5 features built-in SSD storage that helps eliminate loading times and improve game performance. You can also expand the storage capacity if you feel the space isn’t enough to accommodate your games. You’ll find a specific location behind the console’s covers to add external storage.

Ray Tracing

The PS5 supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, which means that the console’s hardware is specifically designed to perform these calculations quickly and efficiently. It helps enhance the visual quality of video games.

Ray Tracing allows for more accurate and realistic lighting, shadows, reflections, and other visual effects in your games. It simulates the way light behaves in the real world. For example, a character’s shadow will accurately reflect the shape and position of nearby objects, and reflections in water or on a shiny surface will look more lifelike.

What Makes PS5 Better Than PS4?

While the PS5 is a vast improvement over the nearly 10-year-old hardware of the original PS4, several developers continue to create new titles on the PS4 in order to target the millions of users who have yet to upgrade their device. However, with Sony officially declaring the end of the PS5 system scarcity and highly anticipated titles such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 coming exclusively to the PS5, there’s now little need to invest in a PS4 and more reasons than ever to upgrade.

• Price

A standard PS5 costs $500 while a PS5 digital edition with no disc drive costs $400. A PS5 bundle with God of War Ragnarök is also available for an MSRP of $560, though it’s now often on sale for $509.

Meanwhile, a brand-new PS4 costs $300, and used or refurbished models sell for around $220. New PS4s that you’ll find in stock now are typically the “slim” edition of the console, which features a more compact build than the original design.

A more powerful version of the PS4 with 4K gaming support, called the PS4 Pro, cost $400 new, but is no longer readily available online or in stores. You can find used PS4 Pro listings for about $270.

• Graphics and performance

The PlayStation 5’s most obvious upgrade over its predecessor comes from its greatly improved graphical performance. The console is capable of playing games at 4K resolution, with support for newer visual technologies like ray-traced lighting. PS5 can also output video at up to 120 frames per second, leading to smoother animations and more responsive controls.

The standard PS4 is limited to 1080p output and 60 frames per second at most; the updated and more expensive PS4 Pro can output some games in 4K, but lacks the hardware to run most 4K games beyond 30 frames per second or tackle features like ray tracing.

PS5 also has additional features that help games feel more immersive than on PS4. The console provides Tempest 3D Audio when playing supported titles with headphones, creating a spatial surround sound effect. The PS5’s DualSense controller has more detailed rumble effects with haptic feedback for increased sensitivity. This makes actions like pulling a gun trigger, pressing a gas pedal, or readying a bow feel different as you pull the DualSense triggers.

• Storage space

While the difference between the PS5 and PS4’s visual quality is striking, the PS5’s internal storage might be the most crucial difference between the two machines. PS5’s solid state drive is incredibly fast. In fact, it’s fast enough to almost completely eliminate loading times in games like Marvel’s Spider-Man and Ghost of Tsushima, which can take anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds to load new scenes on PS4.

The PS5 internal solid state drive starts at 825GB, while new PS4 and PS4 Pro models feature much slower hard disk drives with 1TB of space. Older PS4s originally shipped with 500GB drives but those models were discontinued; used and refurbished models are still available for sale though.

There is a slight difference in the amount of storage available on both consoles, especially since PS5 games can take up more space than PS4 games, but the increased speed of the PS5 is a huge benefit. Both consoles also let you increase storage space by upgrading their internal drives or adding external storage, but you can’t use an external drive to play PS5 titles. Games made for PS4 can be saved to an external drive for use on PS4 or PS5, however.

• Games

In the past, the introduction of a new console like the PS5 would signal the end of games being developed for an older machine like the PS4. But more than two years after PS5’s release, there are only about a dozen games that are exclusively playable on PS5.

However, while many new game releases continue to appear on both systems, games look and perform better on PlayStation 5. PS5 versions of games like Horizon: Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok offer key visual and frame rate improvements over their PS4 counterparts.

And PS5 exclusives, like Returnal and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, make specific use of the PS5’s solid state drive and graphical power, making them impossible to play on PS4. More exclusives are also on the way, including the highly anticipated launch of Marvel’s Spider Man 2 later this year.

PS5 is also backward compatible with PS4 titles, so gamers can bring their current collection to the PS5 without rebuying games. The only exception would be if you own PS4 games on physical discs and buy the PS5 Digital Edition with no disc drive; in that case, there’s no way to play your hard copy on the new machine. The simple solution for people who own PS4 discs is to buy the slightly more expensive standard PS5 to keep access to their full library.

• Home entertainment

When it comes to streaming and media playback, PS5 and PS4 offer similar features and identical media apps like Netflix, HBO Max, and Spotify. 

The biggest difference is that PS5 is capable of streaming at 4K resolution, while PS4 is limited to 1080p, unless you have PS4 Pro, which also has 4K output. The standard PS5 also has a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray drive, while PS4 models can only play regular Blu-ray discs in 1080p. If you don’t have a 4K TV this ultimately won’t impact your experience, but it’s great to have the option for higher resolution.

PS5 does provide a few notable improvements in the console’s user interface, letting players jump in and out of games and apps faster, and track achievements from the console’s dashboard. Navigation to key menus like audio settings and social features are easier as well.

Finally

In conclusion, it’s important to note that the PS5 theme is already set by the system and cannot be altered by the user. While this may be disappointing for some, it ensures a consistent and seamless experience for all players.

If you’re looking for customization options, consider personalizing other settings or decorating your console and controllers to make your PS5 experience uniquely yours.