Sony has announced in a statement that it will retire PlayStation 5’s Accolades feature later this year as award-based system never quite caught on with players.
The Accolades feature, introduced with the console at launch, was intended to be used as a way to acknowledge good sportsmanship in online games. Sadly, the majority of PS5 users are not making use of the feature, which has forced Sony to wonder why it put the effort in.
Is the feature too buried? Too difficult to understand? Or is there not enough good sportsmanship in online games? You decide.
The statement read, “In fall of 2022, the Accolades feature on PlayStation 5 will no longer be supported. The feature hasn’t seen the level of usage we anticipated, so we are refocusing our efforts. We encourage the community to continue to send positive messages to one another.”
Accolades come in three variations including Helpful, Welcoming, or Good Sport. It was introduced to foster a more positive gaming experience and bring the community together by encouraging players to send either one of the three aforementioned Accolades to a fellow gamer based on their performance in an online multiplayer game.
Players who received Accolades could see how many they had garnered from their PSN profiles. However – as ever – the world of online gaming can be a tense place to do business and little to no-one was paying attention to the feature.
Out with the old…
Despite discontinuing the Accolades feature, Sony has other features lined up like the PlayStation Stars scheme that was announced last month. This feature is a new loyalty programme that lets you earn redeemable points on the PlayStation store or for other rewards.
The loyalty programme marks another upgrade to Sony’s digital offerings after recently introducing new PlayStation Plus tiers.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
