Author: Jacob

The Last of Us Part I [PEGI 18] is a third-person action-adventure game that’s available on PlayStation 5. It is a remake of The Last of Us that was released in 2013 on PlayStation 3, that includes accessibility settings that featured in The Last of Us Part II, released in 2020. It is also soon to be released on PC.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world following a fungal infection outbreak, you play as Joel who travels with Ellie across America to find a cure for the outbreak. As with The Last of Us Part II, the game features a mixture of stealth and face-to-face combat against both humans and ‘infected’, using both melee weapons and ranged weapons.

In this video, we will be looking at the settings related to the motor accessibility of the game, such as adjusting difficulty components, controller remapping, slow motion mode and toggle options.

We will be looking at the console version of the game when using a gamepad. Footage has been captured directly off a PS5 console.

Accessibility Presets:

When loading the game for the first time, you can choose a motor accessibility preset which turns on all recommended motor accessibility settings that may assist players to access the game more easily. This includes features such as Lock-On Aim, Auto-Target, Camera Assist and various adjustments in the Navigation and Traversal Assistance menu, and the combat accessibility menu. We will go through these and the other settings individually, in the following sections of this video.

Options > Difficulty:

Before starting a game, you can choose between various difficulties ranging from Very Light, which is the easiest and Grounded, which is the most difficult.

When pausing the game, you can customise various difficulty components in the Difficulty menu found in Options. The components you can adjust include Player, Enemies, Allies, Stealth, and Resources. Each component, like the game difficulties, also range from Very Light to Grounded.

Player dictates amount of damage received from enemies and frequency of mid-encounter dynamic checkpoints. The lower the difficulty, the more damage the player can take, and checkpoints are more frequent. Whereas the higher difficulties will mean the player receives more damage and will have fewer checkpoints during some encounters.

Enemies relates to the enemy’s shooting accuracy and frequency of throwing projectiles, and how aggressive their AI is when heading towards the player. It also changes how complex their melee combos are, their movement speed, and how they behave in specific encounters. The lower the setting is, the less aggressive enemies will be to the player.

Changing the Allies difficulty adjusts how aggressive allies are, and how frequently they defeat enemies. The lower difficulty means they will attack more and defeat more enemies. The higher difficulties will make the allies more passive meaning the player will have to contribute more to defeating enemies.

Stealth changes how enemies hear and see the player during stealth segments, how long it takes for enemies to alert other enemies after spotting the player, and the conditions for grabbing enemies. Lower difficulties provide many opportunities to sneak past enemies and silently defeat them, whereas higher difficulties have more vigilant enemies, making it harder to sneak past them undetected.

Resources determines how much ammunition and supplies are found in the world and dropped by enemies, as well as how often allies gift items and ammunition to the player. The lower difficulties will yield more ammunition and supplies dropped by enemies, found in the world, and given to the player, and higher difficulties provide fewer items.

Options > Accessibility > Alternate Controls:

Customise Controls allows you to choose between various control schemes, including Default, Right Hand Only, Left Hand Only, and Custom Scheme. You can save up to 3 different custom schemes. You can only customise the control scheme in the Custom Scheme option. You can choose to give each scheme a name.

You can change the Controller Orientation which rotates the D-pad and both sticks to match however the controller is being held. You can choose between Left, Right, and Upside Down.

You can swap the functions of Left and Right Stick. You can have it set to Flipped Always or Flipped While Aiming, which only swaps the stick function when aiming. This can help players who would prefer to aim using the Left Stick.

You can remap most buttons with the exception of D-pad buttons, individual stick directions, Options, and the Create button.

You can change how you climb ladders with the Ladder Movement option. When set to Character, moving up and down a ladder is relative to the character orientation. When set to Camera, moving up and down is relative to the camera’s orientation.

You can change how you interact with Hand Wheels. This can be either moving the Left Stick counter-clockwise or holding Triangle.

You can set it so that you use melee attacks whilst aiming. However, turning this option on will disable the shoulder swap action.

There are several options that you can choose between a hold or tap input. These include Repeated Button Presses, Melee Combos, and Bow Firing.

Some options also give you a choice between a hold or a toggle, including Aiming, Sprinting, Crafting, Backpack Weapon Swap, and Listen Mode.

You can turn on Camera Assist which can be useful if the player finds using both the Left and Right Stick simultaneously difficult. You can also limit the assistance to an individual axis, which are the Horizontal and Vertical axes.

Lock-On Aim will allow you to snap your aim to an enemy’s body when aiming. You can still use the Right Stick to aim for particular body parts with this setting turned on. Turning on Auto-Target will make the aiming reticle snap to another target after defeating an enemy, even if the next target is off-screen.

You can adjust the strength of the Lock-On ranging from 1 to 10.

Turning on Arc-Throw Lock-On will automatically aim at an enemy when using a throwable item.

Like Lock-On Aim, you can adjust the strength of the Arc-Throw Lock-On, ranging from 1 to 10.

When Auto-Weapon Swap is turned on, you will swap to your next holstered weapon automatically if your current weapon runs out of ammo.

Auto Pick-Up will pick up nearby ammo and resources automatically.

You can extend the Minigame Time Limit. You can choose between 2x, 4x, or 10x. This minigame is only found in the Left Behind additional content and not in the main game.

The Minigame Input allows you to reduce the number of inputs found in the minigame. This includes Fewer Inputs, which limits the number of inputs per sequence in the minigame, No Chords, which removes inputs that require pressing multiple buttons simultaneously, or Fewer Inputs and No Chords which combines both options. This option is also found only in Left Behind.

Options > Accessibility > Navigation and Traversal:

Navigation Assistance points the camera in the direction of story progression and marks the path to follow by pressing R3.

Traversal Assistance enables a simplified way of navigating various obstacles. This involves pressing Cross to automatically perform certain difficult jumps, as well as performing several actions automatically without a button input including climbing ledges, squeezing through gaps, vaulting over small obstacles, vaulting over small obstacles while on the horse, and sprint in specific encounters.

The Ledge Guard option will prevent you from falling off a ledge that would defeat your character.

The Enhanced Listen Mode option enables the ability to scan for items and enemies while in Listen Mode. If Navigation Assistance is also enabled, pressing L3 while in Listen Mode will direct you to the most recently scanned item or enemy.

You can choose the range of the scan, between 10 and 30 metres.

You can adjust how long it takes for the scan to reach its maximum distance, between 1 and 5 seconds.

You can turn on Infinite Breath so you can remain underwater for as long as you want.

Turning on Skip Puzzle Option allows you to skip a puzzle via the Pause menu if you’re having difficulty with it.

Options > Accessibility > Combat Accessibility:

There are various combat accessibility options available by turning on Enable Combat Accessibility.

When taking enemies hostage, you can set it so that they cannot escape your grasp.

You can set it so that allies automatically escape if grabbed by an enemy.

Turning on Enemies Don’t Flank will not allow enemies to intentionally get behind your position.

You can reduce the Enemy Perception whilst in stealth. This setting is relative to the chosen difficulty.

You can also reduce the shooting accuracy of enemies. This setting is also relative to the chosen difficulty.

With the Invisibility Toggle, you can hold down Circle to become invisible to enemies whilst not aiming. Whilst Invisible, your movement speed is limited. You can set the invisibility to Limited or Unlimited. If you choose Limited, the time limit will be based on your chosen stealth difficulty settings.

You can turn the Weapon Sway off so that you can aim more accurately.

You can slow down the game with the Slow Motion Option. You can set the slow motion to occur While Aiming or as a Toggle.

Options > Controls > Input:

Turning on Remember Shoulder Swap makes the game remember the shoulder the camera was over the last time you aimed rather than defaulting to the right each time.

Options > Controls > Camera Sensitivity:

The sensitivity of the camera movements can be adjusted. You can adjust the Look Sensitivity X and Look Sensitivity Y separately, ranging from 1 to 10.

You can also adjust the aiming sensitivity by adjusting the Aim Sensitivity X and Aim Sensitivity Y, also ranging from 1 to 10.

You can invert the up/down and left/right camera movements. By default, moving the Right Stick up moves it up, and down moves it down. Turning on Look Invert Y swaps these movements around, so that moving the Right Stick up will move the camera down and pushing it down will move it up.

You can also invert the camera movements for the left and right camera movements by turning on Look Mirror X.

Adjusting the Aiming Acceleration Scale will change how much the camera accelerates at high amount of stick deflection. This can be set between 1 to 10.

The Aiming Ramp Power Scale changes the aim speed to stick deflection curve. The higher the value, the less the camera moves at lower amount of stick deflection. This is also set between 1 to 10.

Options > DualSense:

In the DualSense menu, you can alter Adaptive Trigger related options, as well as various vibration options.

You can turn off the Adaptive Triggers, which provide resistance when holding down the L2 or R2 triggers. You can also choose Aiming Only to have resistance only when aiming, or Firing Only, to have resistance when firing or reloading weapons, quick throwing, or using an item.

You can also turn off Bow Resistance, to remove the resistance of the adaptive triggers when drawing the bow.

You can then alter the intensity of vibrations in various situations, such as for overall gameplay or individual scenarios. You can also adjust it for the Combat Vibration Cues and Navigation Assistance accessibility options, if these options are enabled.

We hope you found this video useful. If you have any questions relating the motor accessibility of this game, please get in touch with SpecialEffect.

For game developers who are interested in more video examples of how developers have improved the motor accessibility of their games for players, please visit the SpecialEffect DevKit at specialeffectdevkit.info.