by So, the verdict for the Forerunner is in, and it looks… iffy. The game, the latest title from the developers behind Final Fantasy 15, made a lot of promises before its launch; whether it claimed to solve the difficult proposition of open-world fatigue, or made a point of pushing the PS5 as hard as possible, the Forerunner had a lot to say before it launched.
And as it turns out, the game has quite a lot to say more generally. The core setting of the game is that down-and-out New Yorker, Frey Holland, is transported to another world – to the magical land of Athia – where a sentient cuff attaches to her wrist and guides her through this peculiar fantasy. The thing is, Cuff won’t shut up. Like High on Life’s muzzle in 2022, the cuff seems to believe that we want incessant feedback on everything we do.
But, safe to say, many players are not really interested in this. The reaction to the game’s demo (and a massive leak that started right before the game launched) has demonstrated this in no uncertain terms. And that makes sense; it takes a lot of attention to listen to your smug, somehow British, cuff flapping your proverbial gums when all you’re trying to do is set fire to some weird magical alligator or something.
So you’ll be happy to know that you can turn down the frequency of the Cuff’s smart alec quips – or, if you prefer, turn it off entirely. Thank Christ, right?
By pressing pause and entering the menus, you can find a small sub-menu called “Cuff Settings”. Here you have a number of options, including switches to decide whether or not Cuff shows you where to go in the game, and options to decide how often Cuff talks to you. If you turn the latter down to “minimal”, the cuff will only start with dialogue that is directly related to the story. You can turn up the frequency as well, but we can’t really report on that option because we’ve avoided that one like the plague.
Turning it down means less ‘banter’ between it and Frey as your protagonist parks around the lush world of Athia, and less verbal sparring between the two unlikely allies. For you, the player, it means less headache and more headspace to dedicate to the game’s actually not-so-bad combat.
Accessibility options like this in games are only good things; whether it’s the ability to gag annoying NPCs like this, or the ability to remove spiders entirely in-game, we’re happy to see this becoming more and more common. Platform holders are moving towards accessibility; PlayStation 5’s built-in options and Xbox’s amazing adaptive controls are all part of the picture, and we hope things get better as the industry continues to mature.
The Forerunner is now out on PS5 and PC.
