Horizon Forbidden West Accessibility Settings Revealed Including Two-Controller Co-Pilot Mode

Horizon Forbidden West hits PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 this Friday – you can read Game Informer’s review of it right now – and in the leadup to its launch, Guerrilla Games has released a detailed look at its accessibility settings. 

Fortunately, there are a lot of them too ranging from general accessibility to controller-specific settings as well as audio and visual options, too. The game even includes multiple difficulty settings so that you can tailor Aloy’s latest journey to be perfect for you. 

“With the launch of Horizon Forbidden West only a few days away, we are keen to share some of the accessibility features that will be available for our players,” a new PlayStation Blog post reads. “Early on in the game’s development, we established that we wanted to bring the game to as many fans as possible and create an immersive and accessible experience that can be enjoyed by everyone. Some of these return from Horizon Zero Dawn, and some are newly added as we’ve continued to learn and understand more about the needs of our players.” 

General Accessibility Settings

Here, you’ll find more general accessibility settings that are applied to the entire game. For example, subtitle settings reside here as do the options to change the size and background of those subtitles. You can select your preferred language here, too, and if you forget about one of the game’s many mechanics, Horizon Forbidden West’s fancy new encylopedia has you covered. 

Difficulty Settings

In Horizon Forbidden West, you’ll find five different difficulties to choose from ranging from Story Mode, which eases combat up so that you can focus on the story, to the Very Hard mode, which, as the name implies, is an extremely challenging experience and meant for players who want their skills tested at all times. 

There’s also the Custom Difficulty setting, which allows you to adjust damage levels that Aloy deals and receives to and from enemies. There’s a new Easy Loot system, too, which makes it so that any resource components still attached to a machine ar added to your loot inventory automatically upon killing a machine. 

Controller Settings

In terms of the controller, there’s a lot – there’s left-handed support, a fully remappable gameplay control scheme, several options to swap between Toggle or Hold where applicable, and more. One especially exciting addition is the new Co-Pilot system, “which grants a second PlayStation controller with mirrored controls access to the game.” You’ll need a second controller and a second user profile, of course. 

Additionally, there are motion sensor controls that take advantage of the DualSense’s built-in accelerometer and gyroscope features, sliders for sensitivity of movement and new Dead Zone settings, and more. You can also adjust the way adaptive triggers and vibrations on the DualSense work too. 

Gameplay Assist Settings

Here, you’ll find settings to adjust the actual gameplay and performance of the game. 

“When it comes to weapons and combat, you can, for example, adjust how much the game slows down when the Weapon Wheels (which allows you to quickly equip a weapon), is activated or enable Aim Assist,” the PlayStation Blog reads. “You can increase the duration of Concentration, which temporarily slows down time when you aim your bow, or even set Auto Concentration (if you have Concentration left) which saves you from having to activate it yourself in tricky combat situations.” 

Other settings here include Auto-Sprint, Auto-Heal, and Auto-Shieldwing. Plus, you can turn the climbing annotations to be always on so that you can always see where Aloy can climb. 

Audio And Visual Settings

In this settings menu, you’ll find all kinds of settings such as motion blur, camera shake, camera positioning, and so much more. Basically, you can control most of what you see and hear in the game in this settings menu. 

For a more detailed breakdown of all the accessibility settings in Horizon Forbidden West, be sure to read the full PlayStation Blog post. After that, check out Game Informer’s Horizon Forbidden West review and then watch this Horizon Forbidden West cinematic trailer after that. 

Are you excited for Horizon Forbidden West? Let us know in the comments below!