Want to give your PS4 a makeover, and support an important civil rights movement at the same time? Sony has released a new theme for its current-gen console dedicated to the Black Lives Matter cause.
As far as home-screen themes go for the PS4, this one is beautiful. It has a minimalist style in black and yellow, featuring the Black Power symbol of a fist in the bottom right corner and the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ in the bottom left.
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When you move the screen up, the background fades and instead you will see the hashtag #BLM appear in big letters on your screen.
Sony has not specifically stated the reason for adding the theme at this time, but the company did tweet out that this theme is available for players to “Show your support for the #BlackLivesMatter movement”.
Show your support for the #BlackLivesMatter movement with this new PS4 theme, out now for free at PS Store. pic.twitter.com/mN1PnFHPdlOctober 19, 2020
Black Lives Matter movement in gaming
On May 25 this year, a black man called George Floyd died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill.
The response to Mr Floyd's death was fervid, with protests against police brutality and racism rippling across all 50 US states, and in cities across the world.
Many video game companies went on to show support for Black communities in the wake of this. Electronic Arts and Activision did this by adding in BLM splash screens to Apex Legends and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to help spread the message.
Those messages from games did vanish as time went on, so it is nice to see Sony add in a permanent theme which players can grab and use to show their support.
You can download the theme for free directly from the console’s PSN Store, or use this link to search for it on your browser. We’ll keep you posted if Sony offers a similar theme to PlayStation 5 owners once the next-gen console launches.