Sony Interactive Entertainment and developer Santa Monica Studio have revealed a detailed list of new accessibility features that will be included in its upcoming action-adventure game God of War Ragnarok as part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. These accessibility options include some already featured in its predecessor, God of War (2018) on PC, such as Auto Sprint, Persistent Dot, and different aim and block styles. The new features coming to Ragnarok include subtitle and caption improvements, text size and icon size options, controller remapping, a new high contrast mode, and more.
The full list of new features via the PlayStation Blog can be seen below:
New to God of War Ragnarok
Subtitle and Caption Improvements
We have invested heavily in improving our subtitle and caption system to allow for even more customization and information.
Subtitle and Caption Size: We have increased our minimum text size and added new scaling. This includes an extra-large text size to make subtitles and captions more readable. We have also dedicated a larger text area to match TV and movie subtitle standards.
Subtitle and Caption Colors: You can adjust the colors of speaker names, subtitle body, and captions individually. You will be able choose between seven different colors.
Speaker Names (Retained options from 2018): As in God of War (2018), you can show or hide speaker names. You can set this size independent from the UI text size.
Captions: With expanded sound effects captions, we’ve added several new ways to understand in-game sound. We’ve added captions to both cinematics and gameplay to provide a rich understanding of the soundscape of the world. You can also enable captions for critical gameplay information to assist with puzzles and narrative understanding.
Subtitle and Caption Background Blur: We’ve included options to allow for blurring the background behind subtitles and captions to make them more readable over complex scenes.
Subtitle Background (Retained options from 2018): In addition to blur, we’ve included options to darken the background behind subtitles for better readability on snow. High contrast backing includes multiple opacity settings for you to select from.
Direction Indicator: Critical gameplay sounds now have an optional direction indicator which shows the direction a sound is coming from. To assist with puzzles that have sound cues, this indicator will help you orient towards the source of an important sound.
Text Size / Icon Size
The highly requested feature from God of War (2018) is back and better than ever! You asked for a comfortable reading experience when playing from a couch, so we listened. With a fully re-engineered and responsive UI, and a larger minimum text size that can scale significantly, reading on-screen text is easier than ever.
Controller Remapping
We have rebuilt our controller remapping system to allow you to customize your button configurations in God of War Ragnarok. There will be a wide range of preset layouts, as well as custom controller remapping support. Individual buttons can be swapped and, for select complex actions, you can choose alternate configurations from a preset list.
We offer multiple ways for you to customize your experience for certain actions that require more than one button, including Touch Pad Shortcuts for things like Spartan Rage, Navigation Assist, and Quick Turn.
High Contrast Mode
Our new high contrast color-mode allows you to apply a color to objects in-game like targets, enemies, and other characters, in addition to a variety of item types. When active, this will apply a color layer to characters that will make them more visible against the background. You can optionally desaturate the background to further increase the contrast. Traversal paint, loot items, and special effects can also be made more visible in this mode.
High Contrast Activation Customization: Select off, on, or always on for gameplay only (this will exclude cinematics). High contrast mode can be set to toggle on and off from a swipe for easy access. This mode will automatically disable when in a settings menu or character menu.
High Contrast Color Customization: Select a color palette that fits your playstyle and adjust individual colors for characters, enemies, and items.
High Contrast Background Customization: Separately select mid-tone or darkened background contrast levels.
Navigation Assist: New to God of War, this camera navigation system allows you to orient your view towards your compass objective. When not in combat, pressing the Navigation Assist button will orient your view in the direction of the next story goal.
Traversal Assistance: Gap jumping, vaulting, mantling, and other traversal features can now be automated based on the direction you press.
Assistance +: Adds interaction-based moves like climbs, crawls, and squeeze-through.
Audio Cues: We have linked a sound cue to each of the on-screen interact prompts, so that when using this feature, you can hear when an interact icon is nearby, as well as when the button prompt becomes active.
Audio cues extend to additional combat cues like unblockable attack rings, targeting aim cues, and weapon swap cues. The volume of audio cues can be adjusted separately from other volume sliders, so you can adjust for your own comfort.
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