‘Turn Down the Explosions, Turn up the Rain Noises’, and Other Settings Made Just for Me, Actually

A surprisingly food-centred collection of video game settings that just plain delight me.

Settings in games give all players the same opportunities to tailor the game they are playing to get the best experience they can. We get to fiddle around in the menu to find our old reliables (subtitles on!) as well as sometimes find some non-standard options that, if you’re like me, just tickle you. With that in mind, with no rhyme or reason, here are five settings that made me say:

“Yes, good. This is just what I, personally, have always wanted.”

Sunless Skies (Ambient SFX Slider)

Just focus on the gentle rain noises. Don’t think about how this captain is plagued by terror and nightmares.

Allow me to set the scene: You are flying above the skies of not-quite-England. Your space locomotive gently chuffs over the swell of violin strings, and, somewhere, rain begins to fall. The onslaught of eldritch projectiles from a be-tentacled engine is muffled, your explosive return fire shushed. You patch up your locomotive with the scraps of vehicle you destroyed — there are no survivors — and pull in to a nearby port in time for a spot of cricket, and to re-supply before your crew begin to start looking appetising again.

I don’t tolerate loud, unexpected noises well. In games that have a dedicated SFX slider, I turn that most of the way down and miss out on all those crunchy leaf moments… and a lot of atmosphere. Sunless Skies lets me hear my sky train chuff while I contemplate cannibalism! This is the most important game experience I can have.

Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire (Big Heads)

“Big Heads mode gives characters heads that are ludicrously disproportionate to their bodies. Thanks, Josh.” The setting description, verbatim.

This setting makes everyone’s heads big. I don’t know what else to tell you. There is plenty of wit and charm in the writing of Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire, but most of its humour is found in the heart of the dialogue between characters. That is to say, it’s not typically a game that finds its laughs in visual gags or cheap jokes. At the moment I turned this setting on, buried among other perfectly normal settings, I had just painstakingly cleared my way through a destroyed military dock. I’d needed to confront the last surviving aggressors and convene with a literal god who destroyed my home and killed me once before. I solemnly make my way back through the rubble and the rain, and… bobbleheads. The curiosity got to me. And they’re so damn big. I even have an NPC party member with me who I can’t control and her head gets bobbled too. The incongruity just touches me, in my heart and my soul, and my slightly-smaller-than-average head, if we’re being entirely honest. Thanks, Josh.

Dead Cells (Turn Off Bright Flashes)

Look at those visual accessibility options! I could kiss them if they weren’t conceptual!

I could fill this entire list with settings from Dead Cells, but I won’t. It has both a really thorough set of accessibility settings and also some very charming flavour ones. But also: turning off the bright flashes. I’m sure Dead Cells has some really beautiful, juicy, impactful flashes because it’s an artfully rendered game that uses its pixel art style to brilliant effect.

I will never have seen them! Because flashing lights make my eyes go on an adventure. I limit my game time the most for: My Hands Are Doing Unhelpful Things, and My Eyes Are Doing Unhelpful Things. I love and appreciate games that don’t speed up the process of My Eyes Are Doing Unhelpful Things. And the game is still beautiful. I can stare at it for hours because it’s so engaging and painless!

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Crank Control and Repeated Button Presses)

Note that this isn’t set to all the most ‘accessible’ settings, but what best works for me personally. Accessibility isn’t a mode! Unlike bobbleheads, which are always applicable.

Did you ever play that inexplicably torturous game as a child where you had to put on a pair of gloves and then cut a bar of chocolate with a knife and fork? This is what it feels like for me to have hands, generally. You can’t see anything wrong, and I couldn’t tell you exactly what I’m struggling with, but could I not at least try to cut this chocolate bar without plastic cutlery?

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the third game in the Tomb Raider reboots, and it’s also the first one where I did not have the worst time with quick-time events. I just thought I was bad at quick time events! I thought that part of the in-built challenge is that everyone struggles to button mash, or to rotate their thumbsticks quickly enough to wind up a trebuchet. It emerges that… no, I’m cutting a chocolate bar with plastic cutlery. And now I don’t have to. And it’s great.

Dead Cells (Baguette Diet)

All my power-ups are pastries. I yearn for the day I see a pain au chocolat on this screen.

I lied, Dead Cells is here again. This is such a pointless addition to the game, and it warms my heart, like a freshly baked pastry. One taken straight out of the oven, and then dropped in the middle of a prison cell, which isn’t hygienic at all, but I’ve just been decapitated and reanimated dozens of times over, so food poisoning is probably the least of my worries here? And at least I can eat it with my hands, without any children’s games ringamaroles. No gloves and plastic cutlery here, no siree!

Some of these settings have been explicitly accessibility settings, but while some settings are about removing barriers for disabled players, all of them have improved quality and experience and gameplay beyond that. Regardless of whether a setting has intentional accessibility applications, all of these options are about making gameplay the best experience each player can have. And for me, that means eating pastries. And metaphorical chocolate. And people, but only sometimes. When the atmosphere is right.