Contains spoilers for God of War Ragnarok!
This piece contains spoilers for God of War Ragnarok!
I’ve noticed a common theme within recent PlayStation exclusives: the addition of the dual protagonist perspective.
However, I think that Santa Monica Studios absolutely nailed the dual protagonist narrative in God Of War Ragnarok.
Embarking on my journey with Kratos and Atreus filled me with glee.
It makes a big difference.
The player already understands the mindset of Kratos and his thoughts on Atreus.
The Atreus segments give us enough time to spend with characters that Kratos would view as enemies.
Kratos uses kindness and compassion to prevent unnecessary bloodshed.
Kratos finally trusts Atreus by giving him the ultimate choice on how to deal with Odin.
“We survived today because of your choices.
Who to call friend.
You are ready,” Kratos says.
Atreus replies, “Remember our promise.”
Kratos responds, “Loki will go.”
With an emotional tremble, Kratos then touches his heart whilst saying that, “Atreus…
The epilogue is emotionally effective because we finally get to face the colossal boss - the emotional breakthrough.
Kratos finally believes that Atreus has the power to have autonomy in his life and to be trusted.
Atreus ultimately makes Kratos a better God.
I want to focus on the accessibility aspects of this second PlayStation game, which isHorizon Forbidden West.
(I played it on PS4 because the PS5 did not work for my accessibility setup.)
The main aspect of combat is to accurately tear off enemy parts for crafting purposes.
However the precision necessary to do this can be difficult to achieve, as enemies are extremely mobile.
I’m an advocate for the implementation of toggles and Guerrilla has happily obliged here too.
There are toggles for aiming, opening the weapon wheel, crafting, Shieldwing activation and Pullcaster.
During combat it made a huge difference by reducing fatigue and unnecessary constant muscle usage.
This is supplemented with the option to increase the weapon wheel time slowdown.
This option should appear in all games because sliding is useful but, more importantly, super awesome.
The choice to assign actions when aiming is great.
The additional option to automatically activate Concentration mode when aiming makes gameplay intuitive, fluid and more immersive.
There should be an option to either use the left stick or triggers to swap.
Beyond this, Forbidden West continues the progress we’re starting to see in accessibility.
See you in 2023!
