Sony has already revealed one of the ways it’s going to try new things with the PS5’s new controller, having confirmed that the DualShock 5 will be Haptic-enabled instead of having rumble. But they might be thinking of adding in some other features as well- at least if a new patent they’ve filed (and approved) is any indication.
The patent (via Polygon) covers design that is very similar to the DualShock 4- however, the back of the controller also comes with two triggers. Both these back triggers are reprogrammable, which means you can remap two of any of the other buttons on the controller to them. It’s a lot like the recently announced Back Button attachment for the DualShock 4, except this seems to be built into the controller.
It’s worth pointing out, though, that the front of the controller in the patent does sport some oddities. For instance, the home button is nowhere to be seen, while the controller has a micro-USB port, even though (as Polygon points out) the PS5 controller is confirmed to have a USB-C port. There is a chance that this design shown in the patent might not be final or comprehensive.
As is always the case with patents, there’s a good chance that this never sees the light of day, and Sony only wanted to protect its ideas. That said, in context of the aforementioned Back Button attachment, it’s not so unthinkable that Sony might be thinking of doing something similar next-gen.