Santa Monica Studio has today taken to the PlayStation Blog to mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day by sharing an early glimpse at more than 60 accessibility options that will ship with God of War Ragnarok. These include brand new features designed to make the title more accessible as well as ones the developer implemented with the PC version of God of War. To show a few of them off, some very short but very new clips of the game have been released.

Carried over from the PC version of the 2018 title will be the ability to auto sprint, an always-on reticle to reduce motion sickness, and toggles for aiming and blocking. New additions include greatly expanded subtitle and caption options, which increase the minimum text size, improve the readability of captions, and allow character names and bodies of texts to be in different colours. You can see what that looks like in the very short video below.

Subtitles themselves can also be adjusted, making them much larger and easier to read. The clip below demonstrates this, featuring a few new pieces of dialogue we haven't seen before.

Other accessibility options in God of War Ragnarok include adjusting the sizes of icons, button remapping, and a high contrast mode — you may remember something similar in The Last of Us: Part II. "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."

Another neat accessibility option is audio cues, demonstrated in the short video below. This feature links sounds to specific interactive prompts, like moving objects or pushing open doors. "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."

To learn about even more accessibility options in God of War Ragnarok, click the link. "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," said lead UX designer Mila Pavlin. "We can’t wait to share more with you as we get closer to launch."

To learn more about Sony's commitment to "promoting awareness and inclusivity" in celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, click this link. Will you benefit from these accessibility features? Let us know in the comments below.

[source blog.playstation.com]