God of War Will Have an Immersion Mode Option

For those who want their God of War experience free of HUD elements cluttering the screen, an option will be available to ditch the indicators, compass, and other features for a more immersive experience.

The "Immersion Mode" as it's being called was mentioned in a new post from Sony Santa Monica's Jeet Shroff. The gameplay and AI lead said that by turning on the Immersion Mode, HUD elements on players' screens will be hidden until players are left with only the essential elements that they need to get through the game.

"As Cory [Barlog] mentioned in interviews, we've included what we're calling Immersion Mode," Shroff said. "This will cut things down to just the minimal absolute necessary HUD elements. There's no right or wrong way to play; you'll certainly have a lot of helpful info close at hand if you're playing with the HUD fully enabled."

Players won't be locked into their decision either, so you won't have to be stuck with the Immersion Mode if you turn it on towards the beginning of the game nad find that it's not for you. Shroff explained how to turn it on and off, a change that's made simple by just navigating to the settings menu.

"But for those fans who are sensitive to the HUD, or perhaps for folks who want to stream or capture and would prefer as little UI as possible, there you go. To enable Immersive UI, it's as easy as going to the Settings menu, clicking HUD and switching HUD Mode to Immersive. Yes, that means you can toggle it on and off while you play!"

Similar to the amount of control that players will have over other areas of the game like the customization options for Kratos and Atreus, God of War players will have a say in which HUD elements are displayed on-screen. Shroff said that on top of the Immersion Mode, players can change the settings to ensure that certain HUD elements only appear when they want them to.

"In addition to this, we've added an extra mode that allows you to customize which of these HUD elements you want ON, OFF or enabled via the touch pad which brings up that element for a short duration. This will enable players to truly customize their experience by adjusting visibility to HUD elements like enemy health bars, compass and enemy off screen indicators."

The post also explained some of the different difficulty options that players will be able to choose from including the most challenging of the settings: Give Me God of War. This highest difficulty can't even be changed once you select it, so start your game carefully.

God of War is scheduled to release for the PlayStation 4 on April 20, but look for our review when it goes up on April 12.