I could feel the rushing, crashing waterfalls in the distance and orient myself around them. Little moments like this kept popping up. Gazing over a lush landscape, the sun streaming over the mountains in the distance, I was drawn into the game in a way I'd never experienced before. Before long, I wasn't playing as Sam anymore. It's not just that the sounds Sam makes are quieter they feel distant-like you've slowed your pace to walk a few steps behind a friend you're hiking with. As the camera pulls away, Sam's footsteps and grunts start to fade, blending into the far-off rumblings of a distant waterfall. You don't hear what protagonist Sam Bridges hears, you hear what the camera hears. In third-person games like this, you're playing as the character, but the camera itself is separate. There was a moment while I was replaying Death Stranding for the fifth time-when a Low Roar song slowly eases in and the camera pulls out. The headset doesn't do the best job of isolating your voice from background noise, so if you're often playing in a loud environment, you'll want to look elsewhere. It's too bad there's no boom mic on the Pulse 3D (the elongated microphone that typically sticks out of the headset). It's a convenient way to tweak the audio to your liking and get back to those same settings later if you decide to change it. When paired with the PS5, there are three equalizer presets to choose from-standard, bass boost, and shooter-and three slots where you can make your own adjustments. That means Sony's hardware needs to stand on its own merits.įor such an inexpensive headset, the Pulse booms with thunderous bass and delivers crisp, detailed sound where it counts. Almost any wired or wireless headset will do. Despite the subtle implication in the name, you actually don't need Sony's first-party headset to get the benefits of the Tempest system. That puts the Pulse 3D in an odd position.

No surround sound is required, virtual or otherwise, to hear audio that feels like it's moving through three-dimensional space. There's a very complicated explanation for how it all works, but the good news is that it works on most stereo headsets. The trick is that this all happens in software. Tempest is a new system that lets game developers attach sounds to specific objects and enables those sounds to change based on their relative position, making the game world feel more immersive. The draw is Sony's Tempest 3D audio tech, which you'll only get when you hook the Pulse up to the PS5. However, on nearly every device you're getting a basic stereo audio experience. You also get a 3.5-mm headphone cable so you can plug it into anything with the audio jack. This wireless headset comes with a USB dongle you plug into a PC, Mac, or PlayStation, and it's what pairs the Pulse 3D with the system.

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