With the launch ofHorizon: Forbidden Westrapidly approaching launch, developer Guerrilla Games continues to reveal new details almost on a weekly basis. Just recently, a new trailer revealed the manyside activities and challengesHorizon: Forbidden Westhas on offer, including an arena for battling machines, as well as the return of the Hunting Ground areas. Naturally, Aloy will be rewarded with upgrades and gear for overcoming these challenges, making them worth the time and trouble.
It’s clear that Guerrilla Games has taken the extended development time to improve on the foundation thatHorizon: Zero Dawnestablished on the PS4 in 2017. Thanks to the increased power of the PlayStation 5,Horizon: Forbidden Westalso comes with a few bonus perks including reduced loading times, improved visual effects, haptic feedback, 3D spatial audio, and more. Regardless of platform, the game features a bigger map, underwater exploration, andmore machines to fight against like the Tremortusk. In fact, just today, Guerrilla revealed a ton of accessibility options as well.
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In a new blog post, Brian Roberts, who serves as a Principal Designer at Guerrilla Games, announced thatHorizon: Forbidden Westwill be shipping with a ton of accessibility settings that players can tweak in order to make the experience as enjoyable as possible. While some are returning fromHorizon: Zero Dawn, such as subtitles, preferred language, and other general settings, the studio has seemingly added settings for all aspects of the game that can be modified.
From a difficulty standpoint,Forbidden Westcomes with five options, including a custom setting that lets players tweak individual settings like damage levels for Aloy and enemies. An Easy Loot system can be turned on to ensure that resource components are not lost when a machine is killed, automatically adding the items to the player’s inventory. This option is enabled by default on Story and Easy difficulties.
Guerrilla has also made the gameplay controls fully remappable with a guidance system to warn players about potential conflicts. The new Co-pilot mode was added following feedback from Guerrilla’s sightless accessibility consultant, allowing a secondPlayStation DualSense or DualShock controllerwith mirrored controls to access the game. Optional motion sensor controls can be enabled, as well as customizable dead zones.
Finally, with weapons and combat, players have a ton of control over various aspects including enabling auto-sprint, auto-heal when under 50% health, and auto-shield wing when falling off high cliffs. Climbing annotations can be enabled which highlights climbable surfaces with a yellow sheen without needing to use the focus first.
That’s really the tip of the iceberg for this game, as the blog post goes into great detail with added Audio/Visual settings including being able to force Mono Audio and reduce triggering sounds for people suffering with Tinnitus. These options should please fans, especially with the recent push by numerouscompanies and studios to add more accessibility solutionsto ensure that anyone can play and enjoy video games.
Horizon Forbidden Westreleases on February 18 for PS4 and PS5.
