LogInThe option improves underwater visibility and allows Aloy to breathe underwater.
With the release of a new Burning Shores expansion for Horizon Forbidden West, Guerrilla has added Thalassophobia Relief, a new accessibility feature designed specifically for people with thalassophobia, a fear of deep bodies of water such as the sea, oceans, or lakes.
With the goal being to "ease thalassophobia symptoms", the new feature drastically improves underwater ambient visibility and allows Aloy to breathe underwater indefinitely regardless of story progression, meaning the player won't have to obtain a Diving Mask in order to get the ability. According to the developers, the option can be enabled on any difficulty and will not affect PlayStation's Trophies.
Besides that, the expansion also adds improved UI readability options, which allow one to increase waypoint and quest icon sizes, the option to increase the size of subtitles, new color blind accessibility settings and more. Guerrilla also noted that you won't even have to have the expansion in order to access the new options, as they will be patched directly into Horizon Forbidden West.
If you would like to learn more about accessibility in games, we also recommend checking out our interview with Naughty Dog's Accessibility Consultant Brandon Cole, who told us about working with on The Last of Us Part II, shared the challenges of bringing the stealth mechanic to blind players, and discussed what could be done for the future of accessibility.
You can learn more about Burning Shores' new features by checking out this Reddit post published by the developers. Also, don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.