Surgeon Simulator is coming to PS4

When we first heard that the new generation consoles were arriving, we were super-excited about the possibility that the game – OUR game – could be one of the titles available for PlayStation 4 owners to enjoy.

There was one problem though – how on earth were we going to get the infamous Surgeon Simulator controls to work on a DualShock 4 controller?

Would the game look good on a next-gen console in a living room? Would it still be funny? Would Bob be as dashingly handsome on a big screen? So many questions … we had to try. It turned out that creating a control scheme for Nigel’s arm on the PlayStation 4 was one of the most enjoyable parts of the porting process.

The first and most obvious step to take was to map hand movement and hand rotation to the left and right thumb sticks, as this is what players tend to expect on a console game. The finger controls were less obvious. We had a lot of ideas which turned out to be a bit too clumsy even for Surgeon Simulator. In the end, we decided to lose the one-button-per-finger design used on the PC and instead condense it down into just two of the shoulder buttons.

The most exciting part was when we started using the six-axis motion sensors to control the orientation of the hand. Our playtesters were pleasantly surprised by how good this felt. It’s quite an alien feeling at first but it gives a lot of agility to the hand, so people tended to prefer it over the stick control once they got a feel for it. We were able to sharpen up the responsiveness by feeding in a bit of the raw gyro acceleration values, by which point we decided the motion sensors should be the default control mechanism for hand rotation for Surgeon Simulator on PlayStation 4.

We genuinely believe that this version of the game is even funnier that earlier versions of Surgeon Simulator. Something about seeing vital organs flying around a bigger screen while you relax on the sofa really strikes us as hilarious – having your whole body involved with it really adds to the physical comedy of the game.

The PlayStation 4 SHAREfactory makes it even easier for players to share their failed surgeries with the world. We can’t wait to see what you create!

Remember, Nigel … Bob is waiting. He’s counting on you to save his life.