As we wait for the official release date of God of War: Ragnarok, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Santa Monica Studios have dropped new updates for God of War: Ragnarok.
It detailed the accessibility features that players will anticipate as it’s part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. So, are you ready to join Kratos and Atreus with this upcoming game with these accessibility features this year?
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.
Here’s a look at our Default and XX-Large game wide UI Text scaling for reference.
We also have two examples to share of the in-game icon scaling with smallest and largest options available to choose from.
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.
■ God of War Ragnarok Reveal Trailer: Audio Described Version
To celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we also wanted to provide an audio described version of the God of War Ragnarok reveal trailer that came out last year!
■ More to Come!
We hope you’ve enjoyed a look into this selection of the 60+ accessibility features that will be included in God of War Ragnarok.
We are committed to improving accessibility and customization for everyone. We can’t wait to tell you details about our other categories of accessibility features like combat / aim assists, puzzle / minigame assists, HUD adjustments, camera tuning, auto pick up, and much more.
We are so thankful for all the support from our accessibility consultants and the greater accessibility community for sharing their thoughts to make God of War Ragnarok the most accessible God of War ever. We can’t wait to share more with you as we get closer to launch.
Happy Global Accessibility Awareness Day!
Game Overview
Here’s the game description below from Sony.
The freezing winds of Fimbul winter have come to Midgard, making survival for Kratos, Atreus, and Mimir in the Norse wilds even more challenging than before.
While the last game built an enormous amount of trust and understanding between father and son, there is still a great deal of complexity in their interactions – especially after the revelation of Atreus’ Giant heritage and the hidden prophecy onlyKratossaw.
Atreus is desperately curious. Like most young people, he wants to understand who he is more than anything. In this case, he wants to understand who he could be. The mystery of Loki’s role in the upcoming conflict is something that Atreus cannot let go of. He wants to keep his family safe, but Atreus also doesn’t want to stand by and do nothing while conflict consumes the Nine Realms.
Kratos, still bearing the knowledge of his past mistakes, wants to spare Atreus the bloody lessons he learned from his conflict with the gods. He wants to keep his son safe, above all, and their confrontation with Baldur has vindicated the belief that only tragedy will come from further entanglements with the Aesir.
Together, Kratos and Atreus will have to make a choice about which path they will take. Whatever they choose will define the fate of all those living in the Nine Realms as Ragnarök approaches.
If you want to buy our PSN cards for this game, it’s available here.
Note: The availability of all items is subject to change without prior notice.
【TRAILER】
【FEATURES】
Agony and Vengeance – We show a brief look at two of the main antagonists you’ll face in God of War Ragnarök: Freya and Thor. Because of Kratos’ actions at the end of the previous game, the once-ally-turned-enemy Freya has sworn vengeance for the death of her son, Baldur. We wanted to remind players that Freya isn’t just a terrifyingly powerful user of Vanir magic, but also that she’s a formidable warrior in her own right. Enraged by Kratos’ evasion of justice by her hand, Freya will turn every weapon at her disposal towards her son’s killer. Also suffering the loss of his sons and half-brother, Thor’s legendary bloodlust and wrath will be aimed at Kratos and Atreus. Referred to disparagingly by Mimir as the “Biggest Butchering Bastard in the Nine Realms,” Thor earned his title as one of the most powerful Aesir gods by wiping out nearly all the Giants at Odin’s command. While we don’t want to give too much away right now, we think even a peek at Mjölnir wreathed in lightning will give you a hint at just how formidable Thor will be as an adversary
You Have My Axe – It would not be God of War without a healthy serving of visceral and spectacular combat. You’ve been able to see just a hint of new attack abilities, a new Runic Summon for Atreus, and of course, the return of Kratos’ legendary weapons. As a team, we’ve worked hard to take our learnings from God of War (2018) and improve upon combat to feel fresh, yet familiar. With God of War Ragnarök, one of our main goals was to push player choice in combat. Whether it’s through hard-hitting combos, a mastery of elements, or clever defensive tactics – you will find plenty of opportunities to fight alongside our duo in a way that feels uniquely expressive. Whatever your choice of combat strategy, the enemies that await in God of War Ragnarök will be ready. The realms have grown harsher, and a whole host of new creatures from across Norse mythology will test your skills. From the trailer, you can see what happens when Kratos finds himself under the hooves of the Stalker or grabbed between the jaws of a Dreki, and that’s just the beginning. With an expanded cast of adversaries, we aim to keep each combat encounter memorable from the smallest brawls to the big show-stopper bosses! We can’t wait to show you more as we get closer to release
Onward to Asgard – Fans who played the last game know they were able to visit six of the Nine Realms during their journey. In God of War Ragnarök, you will be able to visit all nine! God of War Ragnarök will take you to the previously unreachable Vanaheim, Svartalfheim, and Asgard – as well as to new areas from locations featured in the last game. Exploring the realms will take you everywhere from verdant, otherworldly jungles to intricate subterranean mining networks. This next installment in the series will bring you a more diverse, beautiful, and mysterious variety of locations than in any other God of War game
