Horizon: Forbidden West | Motor Accessibility Video

Horizon: Forbidden West

Horizon: Forbidden West [PEGI 16] is an action-adventure game that’s available on PS4 and PS5. You play as Aloy as you make your way across the Forbidden West to save the world from extinction.

In this video, we will be looking at the settings related to the motor accessibility of the game, such as Toggle options, a Swap Sticks While Aiming option, and a Co-pilot option.

Footage has been captured directly on a PS5 console from the PS5 version of the game.

Difficulty Options

Before you start the game, you have to choose a difficulty. The difficulty options include Story, which is the starting level of difficulty, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard. Story Mode provides a reduced level of challenge compared with the other four difficulties, with enemies providing little resistance, whilst Very Hard is the most difficult where enemies are at their strongest. You can change difficulty at any point in the game by going into the Accessibility Menu.

You also have to choose how you explore the world, whether it be in Explorer Mode where you can find your own way, or Guided where markers are in place to guide you. This option can be changed at any point in the Accessibility Menu.

An additional difficulty mode called Custom allows you to customise various combat aspects and reduce certain button inputs. This difficulty mode is only accessible in the Accessibility Menu found in Settings after pausing the game. We will now take a look at each option that can be altered.

You can change how much damage Aloy receives from enemies. This can range from Story, which offers the lowest amount of damage, to Very Hard, where enemies provide the most damage.

You can choose how much health enemies have, also ranging from Story, where enemies have the smallest amount of health, to Very Hard, where enemies have the most amount of health.

An element of the game is attacking certain parts of machines to remove their components, which can be used for upgrading weapons and outfits. Turning on Easy Loot allows you collect all components after defeating a machine without the need to remove them in combat. This option can reduce the need for accurate aiming.

Concentration is a skill that slows down time when activated while aiming. You can adjust the Concentration Duration to make it longer than the default time limit. This can be changed between Default, Long, and Longer.

Turning on Auto Concentration will automatically put Aloy in Concentration Mode when entering Aim Mode. Aloy must have concentration to use for this to activate.

Auto Heal will automatically heal Aloy if her health goes below 50%.

Accessibility Menu Options

You can choose between Explorer and Guided for both Quest Pathfinding and Waypoint Pathfinding.

Choosing Button Layout and Customization will allow you to view the controller layout and its various contextual inputs for the game, including Aiming, Swimming and Mounting Machines. This game will require both sticks and all buttons to comprehensively play. However, you can choose between a pre-set controller scheme, such as Left-handed where the sticks and some buttons are mapped to the left of the controller, or create your own layout. You can remap most button inputs on the controller with the exception of individual joystick directions, the Touchpad button and Options button. You also cannot remap the Share button for PS4 or the Create button for PS5.

You can choose whether to keep the Contextual Reminders on to remind you which buttons perform what actions whilst playing.

You can select how slow time passes in the Weapon Wheel Slowdown option. You can have this set to None, Default, Slower, or Slowest.

The Gauntlet Runs Quick Time Events option allows you to either perform a toggle to complete the quick time event, or to complete it automatically without pressing anything.

The Auto Shieldwing option will deploy the Shieldwing automatically after falling from a great height, so you won’t take any fall damage.

Mount Follows Road will ensure the machines being ridden follow the road without coming off the path.

Co-Pilot allows you to connect two controllers to play as Aloy, so you can share the controls with someone else. This requires at least two PlayStation profiles to be available on the console to use this feature.

In Hold/Toggle options: you can set whether all relevant controls can be toggled or held, or you can customise which actions you want to be toggled or held.  These options include Aiming, Using, Quick Crafting Ammo, Weapon Wheel, Shieldwing, and Pullcaster. Another action you can toggle is activating Focus Mode. However, this is found in the Controls menu. Setting Focus Mode Input to Inverted will toggle this action.

You can set the Aim Assist to be stronger than the default setting, so aiming becomes easier and you can hit enemy weak spots more accurately.

Auto Sprint on Foot removes the need to press L3 to sprint. Turning this option on will make Aloy continuously sprint without having to press L3.

Auto Sprint on Mount is the same as Auto Sprint on Foot but applies to machines being ridden.

You can swap the stick functions by turning on Swap Move and Look. You can choose between Normal, Always Swapped, and Swapped While Aiming. Always Swapped makes the Left Stick move the camera and the Right Stick move Aloy. Swapped While Aiming only swaps the sticks when you enter Aim Mode. This reduces the need for Right Stick, but you can still move Aloy using the Right Stick while aiming. 

Movement Sensitivity alters the sensitivity of the Left Stick to move Aloy, so you can make the Left Stick act more or less sensitive than its default setting.

You can adjust how much amount of movement you need to apply to the Left and Right Stick before they register as an input. This is called the Deadzone. You can only apply the Deadzone for both the sticks simultaneously and not separately.

Controls Menu Options

You can invert the Up/Down and Left/Right camera movements. By default, moving the Right Stick to the left moves it left, and right moves it right. Turning on Invert X-Axis swaps these movements around so that moving the Right stick to the left will move the camera right and pushing it to the right will move it left.

You can also invert the camera movements for the Y-axis, which does Up and Down movements.

You can adjust the sensitivity of the camera with the Camera’s X-Axis and Y-Axis Sensitivity options.

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