God of War Ragnarök accessibility features

Feature check at a glance

Of the ten features we track, the official information for God of War Ragnarök documents 9 in full and 1 in part.

• SubtitlesYes
• Subtitle size optionsYes
• Colour-blind modesYes
• Full control remappingYes
• Hold-to-toggle optionsYes
• Difficulty and assist optionsYes
• Audio cues for navigationYes
• Text-to-speech or menu narrationPartly
• Motion and camera-shake reductionYes
• High-contrast modeYes

Notes on each feature

• Subtitles: Subtitles and captions, including sound-effect captions and puzzle captions.
• Subtitle size options: Default, Large and X-Large, with light or dark background and an optional blur.
• Colour-blind modes: Daltonisation filters: Red-Green, Green-Red, Blue-Yellow.
• Full control remapping: Rebuilt remapping with preset layouts including left- and right-handed schemes.
• Hold-to-toggle options: Block and aim can be hold or toggle; sprint can be press, hold or auto.
• Difficulty and assist options: Five difficulty modes from Give Me a Story to Give Me God of War, plus navigation and traversal assists.
• Audio cues for navigation: Combat and traversal cues, with separately adjustable volume and a sound direction indicator.
• Text-to-speech or menu narration: Screen reader narrates a selection of on-screen text in key menus, English only.
• Motion and camera-shake reduction: Camera shake, motion blur and ambient camera sway sliders (0-10); persistent centre dot.
• High-contrast mode: High contrast display presets and per-category colour selectors; high contrast HUD.

Subtitles and captions you can read against snow

Much of God of War Ragnarök takes place in bright, snowy scenes, which is hard on white subtitles. PlayStation's accessibility page lists three subtitle sizes (Default, Large and X-Large), a light or dark background, and a separate blur option that softens the scene behind the text. Speaker names can be shown with their own colours, and the subtitle body and captions can each be set to one of several colours.

Captions go beyond dialogue: they describe sound effects in cinematics and gameplay, and the PlayStation Blog notes captions for critical puzzle information. A direction indicator shows where an important sound is coming from, which helps Deaf and hard-of-hearing players react to attacks from off screen.

The interface text can be scaled up to XX-Large and icons to X-Large, independently of subtitles.

High contrast and colour filters across the Nine Realms

Two colour systems are on offer. The first is a set of colour blindness filters (Red-Green, Green-Red and Blue-Yellow). The second is a high contrast display, which places a solid colour layer over characters, enemies and items so they stand out from the background. It comes with presets, including ones named Collector and Danger, and ten individual colour selectors covering categories such as enemies, hazards and traversal markings. The background can be desaturated to make the highlights clearer.

High contrast can also be applied to the HUD and to cinematics. These are the kinds of options our low-vision guide suggests checking first.

Remapping, touch pad shortcuts and fewer button presses

The remapping system lets you swap individual buttons or pick a preset, including Left-Handed and Right-Handed schemes. Touch pad shortcuts can trigger actions such as Navigation Assist or a quick turn with a swipe instead of a button combination.

Blocking and aiming can each be hold or toggle, and sprinting can be set to press, hold or automatic. Traversal assistance automates gap jumps, vaulting and mantling, and an "Assistance +" level extends this to climbs and squeeze-throughs. Mini-games can be set to a single-button or automatic style, and puzzle timings can be extended.

Several assists reduce how much precision the game asks for. Auto pick-up can be set to Essentials, Economy or Full, so you do not need to press a button for each item. Lock-on camera variants keep enemies centred, and Evade style can be set to Default, Default+ or Tap Roll. A controller visualisation option shows inputs on screen, which can help a supporter see what the player is pressing.

If you are setting the game up for someone who uses a single hand, start with the Left-Handed or Right-Handed scheme and then adjust individual buttons, rather than building a layout from scratch.

Five difficulty modes and the camera comfort sliders

Difficulty is chosen from five named modes: Give Me a Story, Give Me Grace, Give Me Balance, Give Me No Mercy and Give Me God of War. Navigation assist turns the camera towards your objective, and audio cues accompany on-screen prompts and combat events.

For motion sensitivity, camera shake, motion blur and ambient camera sway each have a 0 to 10 slider, cinematic smoothing can be switched on, flashing can be reduced, and a persistent centre dot comes in three sizes. The screen reader is more limited: PlayStation describes it as narrating a selection of on-screen text in key menus, in English only, so we mark text-to-speech as partial.

For players who rely on sound, two audio options are worth knowing. Voice boost raises the clarity of dialogue, and centre pan dialogue removes spatial panning so speech always comes from the middle. Both can help players with hearing loss in one ear, or anyone who finds dialogue hard to pick out from the music and combat. In our editorial view, the game's breadth of settings makes it worth exploring the menu before the first fight rather than adjusting mid-battle.