God of War has a major accessibility problem

The text is too dang small, even after the latest patch, and God of War isn't the first modern game to make this mistake.

[Valkron1]

I skipped all the lore because of this

[mikeslemonade]

lol PS Pro you don't have that issue.

[Highlife]

Have a pro and a 65 inch 4k and 20/20 vision and its hard to see the text.

[rainslacker]

PS4P here. Pretty decent 65" LCD screen. Sit about 11 feet away. not perfect eyesight, but well enough when wearing my contacts or glasses.

it's hard to read the text. Not impossible, but would be nice if there was better contrast to the colors, or bigger text.

[VenomUK]

I have a PS4 Pro and the text IS too small. I'm playing on my couch at approximately 3 metres from my TV, maybe less. I can't understand how Santa Monica Studios made this amazing game which would have been play-tested to the nth degree, and they somehow missed that the text should have been bigger. I suspect everyone was using a monitor which they were sitting directly in front of.

Like @Valkron1 I'm finding that I'm skipping the lore because it is too much effort to read. The thing is other games have done this. Mass Effect 2 had this problem.

I hope another patch is incoming to fix this.

[TekoIie]

Lol is this going to become a selling point for the Pro soon? No squinting to read menu tips?

[AKS]

Pro would be the model that WOULD have this issue because in 2160 checkerboard text is 4x smaller than 1080p.

[Bathyj]

Sorry High life, but if you have a pro and a 65 inch 4k and can't read it you don't 20/20 vision unless your sitting way back or tv is crappy.

Not saying it couldn't be bigger but I read it fine and I doubt I'm 20/20.

[mikeslemonade]

@AKS
Do your research and go learn before you try to trick other people. You don't know what your talking about if you think 4k means 4x smaller text. Everything is the same size on 4k. There's just more pixels to fill it the image.

And just because you have 4k it doesn't fix your eye sight. The 4k image is simply more clear. If you can't see it then it's your own eye issue. Read the article. Pro is the way to play.

You PS vanilla owners can be apologist until the sheep come home, but you're just in denial think the PS vanilla is good enough.

[Ceaser9857361]

Well the issues has been put forward and Santa Monica has tweeted that they have taken note and will fix it soon

[mikeslemonade]

Haha with the disagrees. If you don't believe youtube PS PRO an PS orginal gameplay. You will find that resolution mode is the SAME SIZE TEXT as PS4 orginal text.

[nix]

i have 55 inch tv and a base PS4... i really didn't have any issue with the text to begin with. i only realised it here when they issued a patch. what was bothering me was the black border which i had to go to the settings to get it corrected... i really think the option should be turned on on default.

as for the access problem - the game is larger than the last series... i never wavered around because the straight game itself is so long. i finally finished the game and now i might go around doing side quests etc. i know some people like to waver around and do side quests so it might be difficult to move around. those travel portals only takes you to one place and i really couldn't figure out how to activate the portals i discovered.

now that i have completed the main story - i might go back and explore around the lake and places leisurely.

the game is amazing - it completely shatters the high expectations that it had garnered after the reviews came out. after a very long time, i devoted an entire weekend playing a game and i still couldn't finish it. lol. now i'm going through the withdrawal symptoms i think. i wonder which game is going to blow me away next, it would be hard to get into any other game now... this is like Bloodborne days. This Friday, i'm watching the Avengers, i hope the movie is better than the game i just finished because right now my standards are set very very high.

[nowitzki2004]

I am at 1080p with really good vision and have not yet had a hard time reading anything.

[mikeslemonade]

To the people who think they know more than me and are misinformed in thinking 4k equals 4x smaller text. WRONG!

4k resolution mode
https://drive.google.com/fi...

1080p performance mode
https://drive.google.com/fi...

Now both images are a 1080p source image because I can only share 1080p images from the PS4 or I was to lazy to figure out if you could, so don't kill me. But anyway it's a screen shot showing you that the text sizes stay the same. Don't believe USERNAME: AKS on n4g. He is trying to mislead you with misinformation.

[Highlife]

@bathyj
Try reading i said its hard to read not that i can't.

[UnHoly_One]

Wait a second...

Am I seeing this correctly??

Going by the upvotes and downvotes, a bunch of people on here actually think that when you increase the resolution to 4k, the text on the screen gets smaller?

Are you people even for real? omg. lol

It's not like adjusting the res on your pc and the desktop icons get smaller... lol

Seriously I can't believe what I'm reading here. N4G community has hit a new low.

[mikeslemonade]

^
lol that dum dum named AKS thinks that. And he has been direct messaging trying to say I’m wrong still. I sent him photos on proving it it’s the same size and he’s still making BS up.

[AspiringProGenji]

The first lore text that showed on the screen made me squint and lean forward to read it, but after that It's been alright. i usually have a very good vision, but still it looks like a small oversight to leave it too small

[Angelin]

Uhm... what text?

[Chaosdreams]

Small text is a pain in any game/medium, and I say this while having great eyesight and a 4k tv. If they can gradually implement more settings to allow the adjustment of text (games in general) then that should ease the frustration that a lot of people feel.

Otherwise gamers skip sections where text is the focus.

[rainslacker]

Exactly. Small text on a TV screen isn't about the quality of the TV or the resolution, it's about being able to focus from a distance. If the text is about as big as it'd be written on a piece of notebook paper, it won't be that legible from a distance. If you just wrote some text on paper and kept it at 11 feet away, not many people would be able to read it.

These games are built and tested on computer screens where the dev and play testers are a few feet away from the screen. It's not usually until the end they go onto the TV's. It may not seem like a problem while the dev is making them, but they should know that it's a bad design choice.

[RememberThe357]

Well at least the list of bad design choices in this game is short

[rainslacker]

Yeah. That's a general complaint I have for a lot of games. I wasn't saying GOW is terrible because of it.

[BlackTar187]

I hate bad text on any type entertainment. I have kids and sometimes reading is the only way to do it.

[AKS]

All they need is a "large text" option, but many games unfortunately don't have this.

[rainslacker]

A lot of text is formatted to fit into a space, and giving the option to make it bigger ruins an aesthetic they're going for.

Not saying it's the case here, but I know back in the day, it was a problem for Japanese games localized for the west.

I can't think of any console game which actually has this option. Only PC games I've seen that offer it are for MMO's in their chat functions, and you usually have to use mods to do it elsewhere for the aforementioned reason.

[maybelovehate]

I haven't noticed any text size issues.

[NecrumOddBoy]

What they first started talk about text, I thought they were referring to dialogue captions which I keep turned off. I have no problem reading the text in the menues. I dunno though. 1080p tv and I sit less than 5 feet away..

[RememberThe357]

I don't have great eyes, I'm playing on the 60" plasma on a regular PS4 and I can read the text. It's really small, for sure, but I can still read it.

[AKS]

At 1080p text is 4x larger than 2160p and from 5 feet away? Yeah, I'd assume that wouldn't be an issue for you. Imagine shrinking it to 4x smaller from 10 feet away.

[Gardenia]

Me neither. I have a 50" 4K TV but I sit 2-3 meters away. Maybe I sit too close to the screen

[Matpan]

Another problem is the living room becomes like an airport runway at takeoff... man does the Ps4 gets noise when running this.

[rainslacker]

This is the first game where I can tell my PS4P is working overtime.

[bigmalky]

Clean it with a blast of compressed air. I've had GoW running all weekend and the only noise coming from the Pro is on the map screen. It's not that loud either.

[rainslacker]

I've been meaning to reseat the fan. A lot of times, they use crappy heat compound, or they don't seat the fan properly. I've never had a problem with the fan noise in any game, and even on this game, I wouldn't say it's noticeable when I'm playing. It's just when I stop to to take a break, the fan will be on overdrive. This is usually after pretty intense action scene.

I'm not complaining about it, just that the game is really working the GPU.

On the plus side, I seem to have remedied my black screen flashes with trying to combine all the possible reasons that may happen.

[maybelovehate]

Yeah, it gets so loud. PS4 is noisy to begin with but in this game it is ridiculous. I hope it doesn't blow haha

[The_Sage]

You need to clean your PS4. I do mine about once every three months.

First, unplug everything from your PS4. Then use a tooth pick, or something small to loosen the dust in the air vents. Pull out what you can with your fingers. Next, vacuum the vents with as small of an attachment as you have. After that put the vacuum where the fan is while creating as good a seal as you can. Finally, run compressed air through the vents while still vacuuming where the fan is.

My fan never runs beyond its lowest stage unless I've waited too long between cleanings. As soon as the fan moves off its lowest setting, I clean. My launch console is whisper quiet.

[showtimefolks]

How do you do it safely?

[Matpan]

I do keep it clean, but the PS4 is noisy... Really. And on top of that this game puts the hardware to work for it's money. I need to crank up the tv volume to levels that make it impossible to play at night without really bothering my wife or my daughter...

I understand the implications of running hardware to it's limits on such a small form factor, so that's ok. A passive solution or watercooling would taje too much space and drive costs up.

[The_Sage]

showtimefolks,

As long as you be sure to unplug everything including your power cord, and follow the steps I laid out you should not have a problem.

Matpan,

Maybe your fan is going bad. I am being completely honest when I say that you can not hear my PS4 running at all from the couch. That said, I do play in the morning on my days off when my Wife is still sleeping. Thank God for the headphones jack on the controller.

[Matpan]

Sage,
now that is some clever idea... Hahahha man you just saved my gaming experience. Fan is not liud enough to bother in an of itself, just me trying to overpower it with the TV. And I happen to have this contraption you refer to... Headbones.

[Jinger]

I thought my Pro was growling at me. It sounded mad.

[OffRoadKing]

Not even PS4 can contain Kratos!

[yeastori]

Adjust your to picture contrast. It’s hard to see because the whites and blacks of the text are blending so it looks smaller. I have a 32 inch and sees the words perfectly

[AKS]

That isn't the source of the problem.

[Malice-Flare]

what text size issue? i game on a launch PS4 with a 1080p gaming monitor...

[AKS]

Then this problem wouldn't affect you at all. At 2160p on the same-sized screen, text would be 4 times smaller than what you are seeing.

[mikeslemonade]

haha wrong... text is the same size

This guy thinks he knows what he's talking about.

[rainslacker]

I do have to agree on the text. I don't know at what point in history that developers decided that it was a good idea to put small text onto a game which plays on a TV where the person may sit 10-15 feet away. Even on a big screen, it can be hard to read, particularly if you don't have perfect eyesight. I'd say in GOW they also make the button prompts for tutorials and descriptions so small that it's sometimes hard to tell which button they're talking about when they reference the shoulder buttons, or which analog stick to press.

GOW isn't even the first game to do this. Quite a few games starting near the end of last gen started to do this.

I'd even add that the cross hairs on screen for most games nowadays is ridiculously small or they make it white or a light color so it's hard to see it against a light color or white back ground. Again, not something exclusive to GOW.

[michellelynn0976]

A lot of games make this mistake.

[bigmalky]

I thought one of the patches let you fix this in the options. I've not looked right enough, but I'm sure I read that's what 1.13 was for.

[BadElf]

Anyone else confused about the look of it? THe environment looks really....iffy to me. Especially in the second realm. Looks like the trees and area is made by PLAYDOH.
Darker areas, and the characters look great....but..

[Jinger]

10/10

[AspiringProGenji]

Well deserved

[LegendarySaiyan]

I do't have this problem neither after or before the update :/

[AKS]

Are you playing on a 4K screen?

[LegendarySaiyan]

No, probably the reason why I do not have this issue :)

[cla2]

I don't get it, I have glasses and can't see well at a distance.
sitting 8 feets away from my 55 inches 4ktv, I can see the text just fine in the menus.

[AKS]

I can read it, but I'm used to straining my eyes with UPlay.

[mikeslemonade]

the text is not smaller on 4k you dum dum

[rainslacker]

I don't really have a problem in the menus too much. It's more when stuff comes up to tell you what you get in the field, or in the journal some times.

[AKS]

If you think this is an issue, try using UPlay on a 2160p TV. It makes the fine print in a credit card agreement look oversized. I have to get up and walk over to my TV half the time. Even then it isn't easy to see.

[JesusBuiltmyHotrod]

Nonsense.....play story mode.

[AKS]

This problem affects people with 4K TVs. Look at the frame counter in the upper left corner of my screen capture if you want to understand how small text can look on a 4K screen.

https://steamuserimages-a.a...

[mikeslemonade]

be quiet

[OffRoadKing]

LOL, all these gamers with poor vision.

[AKS]

Can you see the frame counter in the upper left corner of my screen capture (the 60)?

https://steamuserimages-a.a...

That's how small text can be on a 4K screen.

[GTgamer]

I had no problems reading any of it but I can understand some people could

[Bathyj]

It would be interesting to see how many people complaint they can't read the text, but claim they can tell the difference between checkerboard and native 4K. That would make a really telling Venn diagram.

[Tross]

I have a 1080P TV and a base model PS4, I don't sit right up close to the screen, it's highly unlikely that my vision is anything special, and I've never had a problem with reading text in videogames. Are you sure this is a 4K pandemic? Weren't people complaining about something similar last gen when some continued to use SD TVs to play games? Is 1080P the new SD now?

[antarius]

I don’t have any issues with reading the lore. I play on a 24’ 4k monitor. Although having 20/10 vision may be a factor.

[bluefox755]

I sit pretty close to my screen so I never even noticed this, but I could see how it might be a problem for some at normal viewing distance.

[IRetrouk]

Is there not an option to make the text bigger?? Pretty sure i seen an option for it

[cell989]

Yup, even with the patch, it’s still too small lol

[IRetrouk]

Ahh see im short sighted so tend to play closer on my smaller tv, probably why i have not had the issue, hopefully a second patch will sort it.

[TheGamez100]

Not really a problem for me. Well I do have a 49inch 4k tv...however yes I do hope they increase the text size, hard to read on vita remote play but thats pretty much most ps4 games.

[notachance]

been having that problem with ni no kuni 2 and MHW too, feels like the text doesn't scale properly so the bigger screen you have the smaller the text end up.

been trying with both my PC monitor (23inch) vs my TV (55inch) and it doesn't have text size problem in my monitor

[Canidae]

And here I was thinking it was just me and my crappy eyesight. Hopefully they patch it again and fix the problem.

[Vizigoth04]

I can't judge because I wear glasses in the first place. That's my HD fidelity. With that I did on the couch with the 60 inch 1080p with the Pro. The chick is about 5 to 7 paces from the TV and I see all the text clearly. Wouldn't mind at some point a desk and monitor setup instead though. That would be neat I think.

[callahan09]

On the optimistic side, if Sony hears enough complaints about the text size, they should easily be able to put out an update to allow for the adjustment of the text size.

[Cobra951]

This problem comes with the ultra-high resolutions, and GoW is not its only victim. Even Windows has awkward issues with it: Either you whip out some Coke-bottle glasses and sit really close, or you put up with the dodgily handled scaling of text and imagery above 100% in that OS.

[T2X]

Nope, pro doesn't help. Lol. They need to make it larger. Not too hard.

[Christopher]

Don't know why they don't just have scrolling text for those specific UI elements. Then increase text size. I know it's breaking full immersion, but it's better than people just skipping it entirely.

[lellkay]

This is definitely an issue. They are aware and it is being patched, but I do find it funny it got through testing being this small.