Hi, I’m Nomi and today we’re going to look at Forza Horizon 4 [PEGI 3]. It’s a game that we use a lot with people because it’s got some really good assists and that’s what we’re going to look at today. There are Difficulty Settings, Control Settings and HUD and Gameplay. In the difficulty settings you can change your Drivatar settings from New Racer all the way to Unbeatable, depending on your level. The driving assist difficulty enables you to go from Easy mode all the way to an Insane mode, depending on how much help you want when you’re driving. You can also customise this to exactly what you want. Braking and Steering assists make it easier when you’re driving around to prevent the wheels from locking up when you brake suddenly and to enable you to turn the wheels without the car spinning out of control. Traction Control enables the wheels to grip the surface more and Stability Control helps prevent the car from spinning out. You can select Shifting to be Automatic or Manual and Driving Line you can select that to be full in which case it will show you the most efficient lines to take when racing. Changing it to Braking Only, only enables the lines to appear as you’re heading into a corner and turning it off completely means you won’t see any assisting driving lines. Damage and Tyre wear you can select to be None, you can select to be Cosmetic or Simulation. Turning on Damage and Tyre Wear to Simulation enables you to see exactly the amount of damage that you would be doing to your car and it will also affect the engine running capabilities. As you can see here, my car is really beaten up and so it’s really struggling to go uphill. There is also an option for rewind, so if you’re about to crash you can press Rewind to take you back to where you were before. In the standard layout to rewind, just press Y. These are the key assist for Forza Horizon 4. The main thing to note is unless you set a way point, none of these assists will take effect (unless you are in a race).
To set a way point go into world map, move the joystick to where you want to go and press A to set route. B to close map and start driving. In the control settings you can change the Layout and whether you wish to have Vibration on or off. Layout 8 enables you to have accelerate and brake as A and B. Layout 14 enables you to have the accelerate, brake and steering all on the left stick. This is ideal for chin controls. Layout 15 enables you to use accelerate and brake as well as steer with the left stick but you can also use brake with the B button (* brake is only on the B button, not on the stick). Layout 16 is really useful for those who want to play the game with your left hand. Most of the important controls are moved to the left hand such as accelerate for left trigger and brake for left bumper. In the HUD and gameplay settings you can adjust the camera view, whether you want to have the map displayed as well as the voiceover to give you advice. Another important one is Lap Time and Position and whether you’re told whether you’re going the wrong way or not. Thanks for watching and, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with SpecialEffect.
In this video Nomi, one of SpecialEffect’s Occupational Therapists, shows the settings we utilise in Forza Horizon 4 when helping a individual to access the game.
In the video we take a look at the Difficulty Settings and Control Settings of which some of the main points are highlighted below.
Difficulty Settings:
Within Difficulty Settings you can change your Drivatar settings (from New Racer all the way to Unbeatable) to change the AI difficulty depending on your ability.
The Driving Assist difficulty can be changed from Easy mode all the way to an Insane mode, depending on how much help you want when you’re driving. You can also customise each setting, if you feel you would like to use some, but not others. Within these, Braking set to Assisted will apply the brakes when approaching a corner too fast. Steering set to Assisted will use the games artificial intelligence to guide your steering when needed. Traction Control enables the wheels to grip the surface without losing traction by cutting power when it detects wheel spin. Stability Control helps prevent the car from spinning out under difficult cornering conditions.
To enable the game to know which corners and route you are going to take in order to apply these assists outside of a race in the open world, you will need to set a Way Point using the map. Then when you approach a corner on the route, the game will know that you intend to take it and so will apply the brakes, if using Assisted Braking for instance.
The Driving Line can be set to be Full in which it will show you the most efficient lines to take when racing as well as when you should apply the brakes. With Damage & Tyre Wear you can select to be None, Cosmetic or Simulation. In None and Cosmetic the mechanics of your car won’t be affected, for instance, if you crash. In this menu you can also can select Shifting to be Automatic or Manual, which reduces the number of inputs if using auto shifting.
There is also an option for rewind, so if you’re about to crash you can press Rewind to take you back to where you were before. In the standard layout to rewind, just press Y.
Control Settings:
*Update – Since an update, you can now remap individual control inputs to a create a custom layout.*
In the control settings you can change the layout of the controller and whether you wish to have Vibration on or off.
The game offers a number of controller layouts as well as steering wheel layout options. The main controller layout’s we use are:
Layout 8 – this enables you to have accelerate and brake as A and B rather than the default RT and LT, if the triggers are difficult to reach.
Layout 14 – this puts the accelerate, brake and steering all on the left stick. We use this when somone has good control of all four directions on a joystick, putting what could be considered the main required controls all in the same location.
Layout 15 – this is similar to Layout 14 and allows you to use accelerate and steer with the left stick, but you use brake with the B button. This can be useful for those wanting to use the stick for most of the main controls, but may find not pulling back on the joystick preferable.
Layout 16 – can suit those using mainly the left hand by moving the main controls to that side of a gamepad. The left stick remains as steering and accelerate is moved to LT and brake is LB.
Additional Notes:
The Y button can be used to rewind, if you make a mistake whilst driving.
If you have any questions, please visit the “contact us” page.
Game Link (unafilliated): https://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/games/fh4
Video by Cara Jessop
Music: ‘Favorite’ by Alexander Nakarada https://freepd.com/
Developer Resource:
For more video examples of how developers have improved the motor accessibility of their games, please visit https://specialeffectdevkit.info/
