Sony Santa Monica Studios has revealed a boatload of new accessibility features for God of War Ragnarok, in celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
The PlayStation blog post was written by Lead UX Designer Mila Pavlin and detailed a slew of new and revamped options and features coming to the God of War Ragnarok.
The first big addition Pavlin detailed was bringing over features from God of War on PC into Ragnarok. This includes the likes of Auto Sprint, Always on Reticle, choosing Aim Style, and choosing Block Style.
These tweaks were popular accessibility options for PC players, which will no doubt please many others when Ragnarok arrives on consoles sometime this year.
New accessibility features in God of War Ragnarok
Next, Pavlin dove into all the new features coming to the game, starting with Subtitle and Caption improvement.
Among the new changes are a much-requested option to change the text size of subtitles.
Additionally, players will be able to adjust the color and size of speaker names and adjust subtitle backgrounds in a variety of ways.
Following the update on subtitles and captions, Pavlin discussed customizability for in-game Text and Icon size.
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Sony Santa Monica listened to fan feedback on the small text size for God of War 2018, saying, “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.”
Controller Remapping was the next topic Pavlin broke down, saying the team had “rebuilt our controller remapping system” which will allow players to fully customize button layouts. Choosing from a wide range of presets as well as remapping individual buttons are among the highlights.
Finally, the post detailed High Contrast Mode for color-blind or other visually impaired players.
This mode will apply a vibrant color layer to in-game models such as enemies and NPCs to help them stand out against backgrounds.
All in all, the full post details over 60 accessibility options that everyone can adjust to their personal preferences and needs.
Pavlin ends the post by saying the team is “committed to improving accessibility and customization for everyone” and that they are “so thankful for all the support” from the team of consultants they worked with to make this possible.
Below is a full list of the accessibility features detailed in the PlayStation Blog Post:
- 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: 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 Ragnarök. 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.
- 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.