Adding accessibility options in action titles is becoming the norm across the gaming industry and is helping more people than ever check out adventures like Forspoken. Regardless of how experienced you are with open-world titles, here are a few suggestions for gameplay and accessibility options that everyone can use to tweak their time in Athia to their own personal liking. While these aren’t as granular and in-depth as the options players might see in God of War Ragnarok or The Last of Us Remake, these gameplay modifiers can help ensure players of all skill levels can engage with Frey Holland and keep her feet off the ground.
Adaptive Trigger Resistance
Having been designed specifically for the PlayStation 5, Forspoken makes extensive use of the DualSense controller’s haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. It’s one of the best implementations to date, but you have to tone down the triggers’ resistance, as its default setting is set way too high. Put it on Low; you’ll thank us later.
Cuff Chat Frequency
One of the most important options for new players in Forspoken can be found in the Accessibility options. Cuff Chat Frequency can modify how often banter Frey and Vambrace, sorry Cuff, engage in throughout the adventure. Even on Default, expect to hear the same lines of the two ribbing on each other every time a minor objective is completed. While you can’t completely turn the dialogue off, reducing the frequency to Low is already a major improvement. If you really hate Cuff, you can go even lower with Minimal, ensuring that the only chat is relevant to story progression.
Automatic Item Gathering
I touched on this Accessibility option in our first tips and tricks article for Forspoken but it should certainly be repeated here as well. This is perhaps the best option to toggle on and will save Frey and player a huge amount of time throughout the thirty-plus hours a trip to Athia will take. Rather than having to spend time mashing the Triangle button to pick up loot, toggle this option on to let Frey automatically grab whatever she runs past without having to wait for any pickup animations to play out.
Aim Assist
One of Forspoken’s biggest negatives is in how the camera and lock-on are both handled. While they’re both much better than the first showing of Forspoken, the camera system still leaves much to be desired. If you’re having trouble getting your spells to stick on some of the more agile Break enemies, toggling Aim Assist on within the Gameplay Modifiers menu will help keep Frey on target and land those rapid-fire attack spells. There are some instances where Aim Assist will actively hinder the player, such as spell challenges that require Frey to hit three or more enemies with a single attack, so knowing where the option is located will let players toggle the assist on/off as needed.
Stamina Recovery Speed
For a game about going fast with magical parkour, Forspoken suffers when the player has to break the flow and catch their breath. Rather than imbuing Frey’s gear with stamina-enhancing buffs, look at the Gameplay Modifier that lets players customize how quickly Frey recovers her stamina. There are two additional levels beyond the default speed that make the recovery time much shorter. As Frey unlocks more traversal skills that switch between to keep up the pace of movement, this option will be less essential, but it’s an absolute godsend in the opening chapters of the adventure.
Automatic Support Spell-Switching
This is another Gameplay Modifier that players will love/hate. If you always stick to using Burrow to capture loot or Disperse for an automatic turret, you might not want to leave this feature on. By toggling the Spell-Switching feature, players will automatically rotate through every available Support Spell for their chosen school of magic. As one Support Spell is used and goes into cooldown, another will take its place and become readily available for Frey, assuming it too isn’t on cooldown. This also has the benefit of letting players readily try out all of Frey’s various magics and remind them of how beneficial some of the lesser known spells, such as Leech (a poison recovery spell that also restores some of Frey’s health once it’s been upgraded).
Beyond these, nine other gameplay modifiers can make the experience easier or more challenging, depending on player preference. Whether you want to breeze through Athia for the story or want a tougher challenge and utilize Frey’s spell list to its fullest, experimenting with these modifiers will make your experience in Forspoken that much more enjoyable. And for those trophy hunters out there, don’t worry about being locked out of a platinum trophy just because you toned down the difficulty in Forspoken to its absolute lowest.
