Are you using any of the accessibility options? If so, which ones?

I've already finished the game a couple of days ago, but I just started on a new game plus, and I've put on some extra accessibility options just for fun. I'm also including the difficulty customization into this. I beat the game on survivor on my first go, and on this playthrough, I'm doing custom. For player, enemies, and stealth I have those set to survivor, but allies and resources I have set to very light as I want my allies to be 'smart' too, and I don't necessarily need to have fewer supplies this go and I think it'll keep it fun. On my first playthrough, I set the repeated button presses to hold since tapping stuff isn't that fun for QTE-like moments or simple actions like lifting a garage door. I also changed the boat controls so holding R2 would accelerate instead of holding forward on the stick. I feel I have more control over the boat that way. I think the best thing is having auto pick-up for items so I don't have to keep tapping triangle as I scavenge. I turned the FOV and camera distance up to five. And lastly, for on my first playthrough, I turned the navigation assistance on so I know where not to go first as I wanted to search every part of the environment before progressing through the story.

Now, on my second playthrough, on top of those, I turned on enhanced listen mode with the range and time set to the highest to make sure I get everything that I may not have gotten on my first go without messing with the contrast which would take me out of the experience; infinite breath because why not? I have it so hostages can't escape. I didn't have an issue with that in the first game nor this one, but again, it allows for possibly a different experience that will have me try different things. I turned weapon sway off. Again, like the hostage, I don't have an issue with the sway, but since I've already finished the game, I'm kind of treating it like a weapon upgrade. Lastly, although I'm not sure how much I'll use it, I have slow motion set to toggle. It's pretty goofy. It makes the characters sound drunk. It could be handy later on maybe. Anyways, what about you guys? Are you using any accessibility options? I enjoyed that gameplay a lot on my first playthrough, but changing it up this time around could give me a different experience.

I honestly had no idea the accessibility options went that deep. I really loved playing through on Grounded difficulty (no listen mode, minimal health, minimal ammo and crafting materials) on the first game, so hearing there's so much variety here to tweak settings and give yourself a handicap is really cool.

I'd really like to go back any do a minimal-kill playthrough, as I think that completely rewrites the playbook when moving through those combat spaces. It's actually surprising how far you can get while eschewing violence completely in the original game, and I hope that holds up here, too.

Hold instead of mash button prompts is something I now look for in every game. If we must keep QTE's it's nice to have the option to make them a bit more bearable. I haven't opted for any other accessibility options for my first playthrough but I'm sure I will when I go back. Being able to tailor the difficulty at such a granular level is awesome and is something I hope spreads through the industry.

So often games are made incredibly frustrating by one weird mechanic or difficult thing (like allies who die too fast or bullet sponge enemies). Being able to change those things individually instead of having to increase/decrease the difficulty of every other mechanic as a normal difficulty option does is awesome. Even the option to auto-complete puzzles is a thing I can see myself using more often. If I get stuck I'm going to go to the internet and just copy the answer anyway so might as well build the option right in.

I just used the “hold” instead of mash option. I am just done with mashing buttons like that.

I am tempted to mess with the difficulty settings. I have it set to normal right now, but I might bump up some of the difficulty while keeping the resources the same.

@sweep: Yeah, the difference in two though is that you can no longer turn off listening mode, and difficulty doesn't change that. The best thing you can do is simply not use it. It's fine. I came back on to add something, but it can still be in reply to you since it has to do with another change from one. In the first game, R1 (on PS4 anyway) is shoulder swap while aiming, but in two it's square. I had it at default up until about an hour ago, but I changed it to R1 like in the first game. I prefer it since you can still look around as you shoulder swap this way. I've also opted to turn the volume of the audio cues down.

Oh, and it's awesome that, unlike in the first game, on new game plus you keep all your weapons from the first playthrough and you can pick up ammo for those weapons too. In the first game, you'd have to wait until you got to the section where you retrieve those guns, but in two that's not the case. It's nice.

Kind of a bummer that you can't disable listen mode completely, but I guess if they have several skill unlock trees dependent on it that wouldn't make sense.

Getting to keep your guns in NG+ is definitely nice, especially as they're keeping all the upgrades.

I'm on my first throughput and I put on the hold instead of mash but also after some deliberation decided to turn on the sonar pinging for items. It got to the point where I was mashing Ellie up against all surfaces just to make sure I didn't miss anything and it was kind of taking me out of the experience. Now I make a sweep of the area and then do a ping to see if I didn't miss something and move on which helps the game flow a bit better.

I've got the speaker direction switched on with the subtitles. I can't play the game terribly loud at the moment so this helps.

@humanity: You can also turn on a "vacuum" mode where you'll just suck up any raw materials that you walk near, though I don't know if it works for opening drawers and cabinets.

I've turned on hold instead of mash like most people who are absolutely sick of mashing buttons to open doors hiding loading screens and break out of combat. I'm going to wait for NG+ before I really dig into the very fine tune options for stuff like combat and supplies.

@jesus_phish: Yah I considered it but I actually sort of enjoy mashing the button and seeing her pick stuff up for whatever reason. Those 100 hour weeks sure paid off because the animations in this game are immaculate. The weapon upgrade screen? Ooh boy.. like Bakalar said in his review, from the way she handles the guns, to the small icons filling out and the sounds accompanying the whole thing it's ASMR for the senses.

I also did the hold rather than mash option but one that I found invaluable was the "High Contrast Display" options (setting 1). It makes the background entirely grey (but very readable), enemies red, Ellie blue, and items yellow.

It was useful for finding where items were in any give space, from a distance, but really I just found it helped for those impossibly dark sections. I really struggled during some darker sections to see how the spaces were laid out, where the enemies were, where ammo was, and this helped so much.

Never left it on for long as the impressive visuals were one of the things that kept me playing, but it really helped for certain combat sequences/pathway hunts

A tangent, but this is exactly how I felt about Modern Warfare. Can't say what the fuck is it about those menus, particularly the gun workshop, but I loved the sound design so much that it basically singlehandedly motivated my continued play for weeks at a time.

I've turned up partner aggression on my ng+ run and its pretty entertaining having them light up enemies for me.

Also, it is pretty incredible how many things you can tweak with the accessibility options, especially since I'm usually lucky if I can get a colorblind option

Not sure if it's an accessibility option or dependent on difficulty but I am massively appreciating the way the game will make a checkpoint whenever you get a successful stealth kill in an encounter on normal. The worst part of stealth games (including TLOU1) is when you clear a bunch of enemies quietly only to make one mistake, die and then have to spend 10 minutes creeping around doing all those kills again

@intradictus: Yeah, I didn't even know that was a thing on my first playthrough. Honestly, I probably would have turned that on, on my first go because, at least to me, it makes more sense. If the enemies can shoot accurately, why would my ally not be able to? There is a much better chance that they will save you if you're in trouble too. So far on new game plus, the game is far easier, regardless of friendly A.I. so I am not having any issue with enemies, but still. There was only one part in the game, late in the game, that friendly A.I. was acting very stupid. The character would simply stand there in the open and look at the enemy that is passing them by, and I was thinking 'are you going to do anything!? He is right there!' I wonder if having them be more aggressive would have changed that.

@stinger061: Yes, this is also why playing on survivor was rarely if ever frustrating because the checkpoints were so lax. The checkpoints are supposedly spread further apart on survivor, but it was still very good. Some of the middle combat sections (like the one that introduces dogs) took me around 20 minutes, but the checkpoint would go what felt like every three minutes with a few extra kills or just waiting and moving around the environments (I am not exactly sure what triggers the checkpoint; just time?) I didn't die a whole lot, but I was hiding and waiting for them to be in my sight so I could take them down, and I didn't know how many were left so it took time. I would have been flustered if I had taken all those guys out after all that time and then died and went back to the beginning.

@humanity: As you've said, you like to press the button, but if you start losing interest turn on auto pick-up. I don't think it lessens the experience or immersion. To me, scavenging is not the fun part of the game so having Ellie pick stuff up herself along the way as you admire the environments is what I prefer. You still have to press triangle to open drawers though. And I agree, to some extent, especially if it was on the first playthrough, I wouldn't recommend the pinging because it kind of, at least for me, makes me want to run straight to the ping instead of what I normally do which is walk around, and it's just not that fun to keep having Ellie crouch and ping again and again to get every item. The ping is more useful for enemies I'm finding, especially when you've cleared out most of them and one or more aren't in sight.

@ntm: Yah I might be coming around on that idea. I've played a few more hours with the sonar and it's as you said - I'm starting to get into a habit of crouching down in every area and pinging stuff. Then again, I just recently encountered a "unique equipment upgrade" that was off the beaten path which I could have easily missed and now I'm wondering if thats the only place it comes up in the entire game? I know myself enough that at a certain point I will just want to mainline the story to see what happens and will start running by all these houses and ignoring side content and am kind of worried this will lead to me missing some critical stuff.

@humanity: I could be wrong, but unfortunately I think it will. You may lose out on picking up magazines that unlock skill trees, as well as new weaponry. The game is quite long if you're searching every nook and cranny. I did that and the game took me 38 hours. I came on to say though, the auto pick-up doesn't eliminate the pick-up animations. I'm not sure if you knew so I wanted to mention that. It can make some of those animations a bit awkward at times because she picks things up so quickly right after another. Mainly when she reaches behind her. It's not bad, it just looks slightly awkward.

@humanity: The critical items like new skill books are not in a fixed locations and will spawn in your path if you miss them.