Hate mashing buttons for QTEs? Shadow of the Tomb Raider understands.
Crystal Dynamics revealed a neat new feature in Shadow of the Tomb Raider on its Steam page, outlining outlined the available difficulty and accessibility options that will ship at launch.
One of the accessibility options was buried deep within the post, but it’s worth calling out on its own:
• Optional Y Axis Inversion
• Toggling on and off Vibration
• Reducing Camera Shake
• The option to center the camera horizontally so that it is ‘soft locked’ on Lara’s back, requiring the use of only one stick for movement. The other stick can still be used to move the camera if desired.
• The option to tap rather than hold left trigger to aim down the sights
• The option to use right (default) or left stick to aim, when looking down sights (left trigger)
• The option to hold button press prompts rather than repeated tapping
• The option to push the stick directionally for crank control prompts rather than rotate
• Adjustable aim sensitivity
Hallelujah. Mashing buttons for a QTE that you have to pass anyway to proceed is comfortably one of the most annoying things in video games. This isn’t Detroit: If you need me to pass this section to proceed, and there’s no actual timing or skill required other than pressing a button, why not make it a comfortable experience?
Speaking of difficulty, the game’s pretty flexible there as well. You’ll be given a difficulty preset, which you can change throughout the game, but you can further customise the difficulty of the puzzles, combat, and general exploration.
Don’t like the white outlines on areas showing you what walls and trees you can climb up? Then you can turn those off by bumping the exploration difficulty up. If you want super tactical combat, ramp up the combat and pray for headshots.
You can go the other way as well – if you’re having trouble with puzzles, jump into the options and drop the puzzle difficulty down to easy. Not only will Lara give you direct hints about how to progress (instead of vague suggestions), you’ll get a bright blue outline showing you precisely what you need to interact with:
Here’s the difference between each of the difficulty settings, for the combat, puzzles and exploration:
Combat Difficulty
Easy
• Aim assist enabled
• Enemies have lower health and do less damage
• Ammunition boxes are plentiful
• Enemies have illuminated silhouettesNormal
• Enemies have normal health and damage
• Ammunition boxes are rare
• Enemies have illuminated silhouettesHard
• Enemies have increased health, do more damage and locate Lara more quickly.
• No health regeneration in combat
• Ammunition boxes are rare
• No hit markers on the reticle
• Enemies are not highlighted in Survival InstinctsDeadly Obsession
• Same as hard
• No HUD icon when Lara is being detected by an enemy
Puzzle Difficulty
Easy
• Lara gives direct hints on next action to perform
• Interactable objects are highlighted in Survival Instincts
• Objects necessary to progress highlighted in blue during Survival Instincts
• Longer window of opportunity for timed mechanicsNormal
• Lara gives general hints on the next action to perform
• Interactable objects are highlighted in Survival Instincts
• Normal window of opportunity for timed mechanicsHard/Deadly Obsession
• No hints are given by Lara
• No Survival Instincts
• Shorter window of opportunity for timer mechanics
Exploration Difficulty
Easy
• Obvious white paint on critical path
• Longer saving grab timer
• Base camps are litNormal
• Discreet white paint on critical path
• Normal saving grab timer
• Base camps are unlitHard
• No white paint on critical path
• Reduced saving grab timer
• No Survival Instincts during exploration
• Base camps are unlitDeadly Obsession
• Same as Hard
• Base camps are unlit and require resources to light
• Game only saves at Base camps
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More info can be found over at Steam.
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