God of War Ragnarok's Leviathan axe makes great use of this DualSense feature

God of War Ragnarok features some of the most in-depth accessibility options of any big-budget release of its type, including one heavily requested feature that the previous title lacked. The full list of over 70 customizable accessibility settings has been unveiled by Sony Santa Monica, though the stand out has to be the ‘Motion Sensor Function Aiming Activation’. Motion-controlled Leviathan Axe? Yes, please.

This toggleable feature for God of War Ragnarok on PS5 means that players will be able to use the Dualsense’s motion sensor to perform actions such as throwing Kratos’ Leviathan Axe. It’s not only a win for accessibility but also adds a new dimension to solving the game’s various challenges in a more engaging fashion than simply aiming the sticks can deliver. 

Sony gives you fine control of the feature, providing advanced options to track your horizontal and vertical speed while aiming, with a sensitivity slider ranging from 0.1 to 3.0. This will measure the in-game camera movement, with the lower numbers indicating a slower response from behind Kratos’ back. This is true of acceleration as well; there’s a slider from zero to 10, and the ability to reduce smaller motions with its own dedicated zero to 30 slider, which is calculated in degrees-per-second, which can help mitigate any unwanted accidental motions. 

(Image credit: Sony)

God of War Ragnarok features many tricky puzzles that require Kratos to throw his axe at targets, chains, and switches – many of which are time-trialed. It can take more than a few tries to get it right. If you’re after a new way to engage with the game world or find the sticks less than ideal when time is of the essence.

Now, this isn’t the first instance of motion-controlled aiming being available in a first-party Sony game. We previously saw this feature available on the PS5 with Horizon: Forbidden West and earlier than that with The Last of Us: Part 2 on the PS4. It’s been a heavily requested feature from many of the company’s largest releases for the increase of precision available. It’s no rival for a high DPI setting gaming mouse but is considerably faster than your everyday twin-stick setup.

Is Gyro aiming faster for aiming?

Gyro aiming has seen widespread adoption in the competitive world of eSports as a compelling alternative to your standard gamepad controls due to the sensors being more immediate than moving both sticks. With fewer inputs, all you’re having to do is tilt the controller with the crosshair on screen. With the right settings enabled, and some practice, you’ll be able to pull off faster moves than with a twin-stick. Here’s a demonstration:

Outside of the world of PlayStation, we’ve seen competitive titles, such as Splatoon 3 on Nintendo Switch, strongly lean towards gyro/motion aiming, with this control scheme widely being considered not only a viable alternative to more traditional means but even preferable. Now, God of War Ragnarok is the furthest thing away from a Twitch-based title, but you may save a precious few seconds making a change here.

There are loads of other accessibility features available in God of War Ragnarok, including the ability to scale the UI text size, increase the timing on puzzles,  and turn off visual effects, such as film grain and motion blur.

It's excellent to see big-name developers finally leaning into providing a wide spread of features to make their games more accessible for players. 

• Street Fighter 6 has an accessibility feature more developers should copy.