God of War Ragnarök: Accessibility settings worth your time

God of War Ragnarök continues Sony’s recent legacy of packing its first-party games with a wide array of accessibility options to accommodate more players. The menus are densely stuffed with options worth exploring before Kratos takes his first steps into Midgard, so we’ve tried to highlight some that could make your journey easier.

Since accessibility recommendations are personal to everyone’s needs, this list isn’t an exhaustive review or breakdown of every available setting you can tweak in Ragnarök. These will improve the game’s accessibility regardless of your level. They are well worth the toggle. It’s an exciting amount of customizability; there’s no right way to play the game, and tons of ways to make the game right for you.

Handily, God of War Ragnarök’s menus will also designate any setting you’ve changed with blue text, instead of the original white.

Find the main road.

Navigation AssistThe press of R3 flips the camera so it is oriented to the currently selected story. Fimbulwinter had covered Midgard with ice and snow. This has rendered the familiar landscape in icy blues and whites. The option to swiftly relocate the path is essential after many detours for yet another treasure chest.

To add a side quest (or “Favor”) objective to your compass, go into the GoalsMenu, choose Favor and then hit the triangle to add it on your map.

This option can be set to a direction swipe on the Touch Bar. To do this, go to Touch Pad ShortcutsSection in the Controller Remapping menu.

Image: SIE Santa Monica Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment, via Polygon

Notice me, Kratos

There are a lot of tweaks that make finding things around the Nine Realms’ icy, verdant, or fiery environments much easier. Don’t sleep on the Presets that have high Contrast You can use this color to highlight selected objects. You can choose to highlight any object, including enemies or hazards. My gravitation was towards Choose a Target ColorI used this to turn any object with a throwing weapon into bright magenta. Is this a break in immersion? Slightly, but it’s well worth it for easily discerning the puzzle objective in a dark cave.

Image: SIE Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment, via Polygon

It is also possible to transform any of the Traversal markings — the guiding marks that show the main pathway — to a brighter color that’s much easier to spot.

Pick up your auto with Auto Pick Up

It Auto Pick-up option might not be everyone’s preference, but it’s implemented elegantly in Ragnarök. Instead of having to press circle to scoop up a rage or health stone during combat, they’ll pick up when Kratos is about a foot away — thankfully, they aren’t magnetically drawn from great distances. You won’t automatically pick up resources if your health and rage meters are already full. But it will still consume them even if your bars only need the tiniest top off, so it’s worth considering before turning Auto Pick Up on.

Two levels are available: Essentials just picks up health, rage, and “other items” as needed. Essentials +:additionally picks up hacksilver, loot drops, and other resources when you’re out of combat.

Puzzles can be solved with some flexibility

If you’ve reached your breaking point with certain timed puzzle elements, including those infuriating Nornir Chest bells, Ragnarök allows for some grace. It is possible to have some grace. Puzzle TimingYou can toggle the switch under Navigation and puzzles Subhead: Adds some cushion with these two options. Extended Extended+. While the game doesn’t specify how much time these add, Extended still made me hustle to get everything in time.

Image: Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon

Get where you’re going more easily

There are two different menu options that reduce button presses during Kratos’ explorations of the Nine Realms. You can switch Assist with TraversalTo AutoKratos, co., can jump over and maneuver smaller obstacles, steps and steps and then descend from ledges, pressing only the left stick. This is the Auto+This setting will also disable the buttons for climbing and crawling as well as sliding through cracks.

It SprintYou can change the setting to allow sprinting, instead of default clicking the leftstick. You can map sprinting to the X button or turn on Auto Sprint. This will allow Kratos to start sprinting if you continue moving forward with your left stick. What’s most unique is the flexibility to delay the start time of Auto Sprint, for up to five seconds in half-second increments.

Some minor tweaks to action sequences

Some Ragnarök For fights and quick events, players must quickly tap the circle button during key moments in order to counter or dodge an incoming heavy assault. These are the basics Repeated button presses toggle is worth visiting if you’d like to switch from furiously tapping the circle button to holding it.

Know who is talking and what they’re saying

Mimir is the game’s foremost talking head. However, his jokes or lore can sometimes be difficult to understand when there are enemies snarling behind him Atreus says something entirely different about puzzles. Ragnarök’s closed captioning options have made it way easier for me to know who is talking, and to actually see what they are saying. There are Subtitles Captions; toggling the former adds written out versions of the character’s dialogue to the center bottom of the screen, and the latter adds descriptions of sounds like “(Kratos sighs heavily)” or music cues.

Closed captions can be customized as well. You can also activate Speaker NameTo find out who’s talking and to toggle Subtitle Color To be different Caption Color, to easily differentiate between characters speaking and cues like “[combat ending]” based off of the color of the text. To make it easier to read, you can make your text larger.

Image: SIE Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Find out which direction the sound is coming in

Further customization is possible Captions Subtitles to include Direction Indicators. An arrow is added to the end of the closed caption, pointing in the opposite direction from the source. It’s helpful for knowing which direction combat is coming from so you don’t get hit in the back. You can also determine the direction you should go to see a friend again if they have walked away.