God of War: Ragnarök is the highly anticipated upcoming sequel to 2018's God of War, which revolutionized Kratos' character as he struggled to overcome his violent past, focusing on his role as a father and his relationship with his son, Atreus. The game will be released on Nov. 9, and from its impressively high review scores, it seems set to meet the huge expectations set by the success of its prequel.

One of the most recent updates from its developer, Santa Monica Studio, has highlighted God of War Ragnarök's many accessibility features that will allow everyone to enjoy the game. Given the huge number of gamers who live with disabilities and the major social and mental health benefits that video games can provide, accessibility is hugely important for the future of the industry. In this respect, God of War: Ragnarök will lead from the front by including a wider range of features, such as subtitle and caption improvements, controller remapping options, high contrast mode and more, ensuring that the game can be played by all.

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Subtitle & Caption Improvements Let Players Customize Their Experience

God of War Ragnarök caption accessibility options

The subtitles and captions in God of War: Ragnarök have been improved to ensure that players with varying levels of hearing and sight impairments can customize the settings to suit their individual needs. The text size, as with UI text and icon size, is adjustable to ensure key information can be easily seen by all. Similarly, the color of speakers' names, subtitle bodies and captions can also all be individually chosen from seven different options. Santa Monica Studio has also added options that allow the background behind the subtitles to be blurred, ensuring they remain readable throughout the game's dynamic cutscenes.

There will also be the option to include more information within these captions. For example, expanded sound effect captions will help players better understand the surrounding environment, both during cinematics and gameplay. Players will also be able to add extra captions for important in-game information, such as essential puzzle clues and story information. These seemingly basic but key features will play a huge role in helping players with a wide range of abilities enjoy and follow the game comfortably.

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Controller Remapping Makes God of War Ragnarök More Physically Accessible

God of War Ragnarok reveal trailer

Although captions, UI text and icon size are incredibly important, they don't make the game more physically accessible. Some gamers with disabilities, for example, might be unable to physically reach all the required buttons for a certain action and could therefore become stuck and excluded from playing. Although there are controller adapters available to aid with this, developers can also help by allowing controls to be remapped to specific buttons.

To this end, God of War: Ragnarök will include a wide range of preset and custom remapping options, allowing even individual buttons to be changed. In addition, for certain actions that require the player to press several buttons at once, such as Spartan Rage, players can choose to customize these with Touch Pad shortcuts instead. In addition, actions with default settings that require players to hold, or repeatedly press a button, will also be able to be changed. These options will go a long way in helping gamers with disabilities take full control of their adventure.

God of War Ragnarök's High Contrast Mode Will Help Players With Visual Disabilities

God of War Ragnarök high contrast mode accessibility options

God of War: Ragnarök will also feature a high contrast mode that will help gamers with various sight impairments distinguish important elements from the background. Players can choose from a variety of colors and individually apply these to a wide range of important in-game visuals such as characters, enemies, items, traversal paint and special effects. Players can also choose to desaturate the background to further enhance this contrast, and they can also select mid-tone or darkened background contrast levels. Again, this is an important step to aid those who struggle to separate specific or more complex colors.

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Accessible Combat Options Ensure More Players Can Experience Kratos’ Immense Power

Kratos fights a giant electric crocodile Mini Boss in God of War Ragnarok

Santa Monica Studio's latest accessibility update has confirmed many new options to help players with combat, ensuring more people can experience being in control of the God of War's legendary weapons and strength. As expected, the game's difficulty can be adjusted, but there's far more here to help those who may want or need it. For example, a variety of aim assist and lock-on camera options ensure that players won't lose track of the enemies around them.

Additionally, players can enable a setting that automatically recenters the camera after performing an attack, to aid with player direction and camera control. Finally, God of War: Ragnarök players can also opt to activate a mini-boss checkpoint feature. This new option means that if a player did enough damage before dying to a mini-boss, the foe will be respawned with reduced health upon the player restarting the battle to try again.

Other Key Features Improve the Game's Overall Accessibility

God of War Ragnarok Kratos in combat.

God of War: Ragnarök will also feature many optional in-game aids to improve the game's overall accessibility. For example, players can choose to turn on navigation assist, which will allow players to press a button to focus their view on the next objective. Similarly, traversal assistance will aid players with more complex movements such as gap jumping, vaulting and mantling by automating these actions based on the player's directional inputs. Assistance + will also add climbs, crawls and squeeze-throughs to this automation.

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Other visual options will allow the experience to be further tailored to meet player needs. For example, players can choose to reduce the flash from moments that have full-screen flash effects, or reduce motion blur and camera shake. There's also the option to add a persistent center dot of various colors to aid players. The game's HUD, including the in-game compass, enemy health bars and aim reticle, can also be extensively customized to match the player's preferences.

Finally, audio cues will help many players receive key information in a way that better suits them. For example, Santa Monica Studio has added optional sound cues to alert players when an interact icon is nearby, as well as when it becomes ready to use. Combat cues can also be linked with sounds so that players are aware of unblockable attack rings, targeting aim cues, and weapon swap cues while in the heat of battle. The volume of these sounds can be individually adjusted and can also include a direction indicator to further enhance awareness and point players toward key on-screen information.

Accessibility options in video games are becoming more and more commonplace, yet there's still a long way to go until they become the industry standard. Given the popularity and positive benefits of video games, it's so important that popular titles lead by example and make themselves accessible for everyone to enjoy. God of War: Ragnarök should be praised for doing just that.