Meet the Man Making PS5 Manuals for Your Physical Games

No doubt like many of you, poring over PS1 manuals in the back of the car is a core memory for me. I used to get so excited for my latest game that I’d read the booklet from cover-to-cover, eagerly devouring as much information as I possibly could in anticipation of playing when I got home.

Sadly, in this increasingly digital era, manuals no longer exist. There are some companies trying to keep the spirit alive; all new Evercade games come with a booklet included, for example, allowing you to read about the content on each cartridge.

But even though physical games continue to cling on for dear life, it’s increasingly rare you’ll get any additional documentation inside the case.

Remembering those familiar fond memories he had from childhood, Sandeep Rai – the author of many PlayStation books, including the excellent Vita Means Life – has been working tirelessly to keep the spirit of manuals alive.

“I always loved cracking open manuals for new games,” he tells me. “I’m sure it’s partly tied to nostalgia from when I was younger, and my memories of buying a new NES game and reading the manual cover-to-cover as my parents drove me home from the shops.”

Rai says he was gutted when he learned PS Vita games wouldn’t come with manuals, and he was inspired by a fellow creator to make some for his favourite titles.

“I didn’t know if there would be much of a market, but I was partly making them for myself, because I just missed having them,” he says. “Each PS Vita manual ended up selling hundreds of copies.”

The industrious individual has made over 50 manuals to date, transitioning from PS Vita to PS4 and more recently to PS5. He’s covered a variety of different games, from cult titles like Stellar Blade through to juggernauts such as the more recent Resident Evil Requiem.

“My best-selling manuals are Bloodborne and Astro Bot,” he reveals. “I’ve sold hundreds of copies of each.

“It’s tricky to estimate how many each manual will sell, and the minimum print order is 100 copies. It’s more cost-effective to order larger quantities, but predicting demand isn’t always easy. Ideally, I would have ordered 600-700 Astro Bot manuals upfront, but instead I’ve had to reorder multiple times.”

Rai says predicting sales patterns can be tricky, too. For example, he says his Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 manual didn’t sell many copies at first, and then suddenly picked up several months after release. He tells me he’s also seen an uptick in interest for his Kena: Bridge of Spirits manual since the sequel was revealed, too.

Rai sells each manual for around £5 (~$6.75) apiece, but they’re thoughtfully crafted affairs, reminiscent of the old booklets you’d get in the 90s.

In addition to controls and gameplay details, he packs each manual with as much information as possible, and styles them around the game. His Stellar Blade booklet, for example, includes a documented list of all unlockable outfits and much more.

He cites a variety of sources of inspiration, including those classic Nintendo booklets we all fell in love with in the 90s.

“I try to make my manuals very visual and include images and bios on the key characters in each game,” he says.

“For example, Killzone’s PS2 manual was styled like a propaganda newspaper. That one actually inspired me when I made the manual for Helldivers 2 – I wrote it as a propaganda-style handbook for new recruits and even included adverts to buy Liberty Helmets.”

There’s a craft to the work Rai’s doing, then, but he does have some rules before tackling a project.

Firstly, he has to be personally interested in whatever game he’s making a manual for. And secondly, he does consider whether he (or, indeed, others) would actually even want to own a booklet in the first place.

“I haven’t always got it right,” he muses. “I love the Ys series and made manuals for Ys VIII and Ys X, but they haven’t sold particularly well. My manual for Monster Hunter Wilds didn’t perform as well as I’d hoped either. But for the most part, I’ve found an audience for the manuals I’ve created.”

Indeed, Rai seems to have carved out a neat little niche for himself here, and all of his booklets are getting rave reviews on Etsy.

For him, it’s justification that even in this digital era, fans still want manuals to accompany their physical games.

“What’s been most surprising, and honestly quite special, is that in an age where so much of gaming has gone fully digital, there’s still a demand for physical game manuals,” he notes.

“I do wish publishers still included manuals as standard, because it just made the physical release feel complete. But since they’ve moved away from them, I’m more than happy to step in and fill that gap.”

You can learn more about Rai’s selection of manuals on his official website and his Etsy store. Do you have fond memories of reading booklets when you were younger? Are you tempted to add some of Rai’s manuals to your physical games? Let us know in the comments section below.

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