All accessibility features in Call of Duty: Vanguard

The Call of Duty games are fast-paced titles filled with thrilling moment-to-moment gameplay, and Vanguard is no different. Regrettably, while playing on default settings, the speedy nature of the game is liable to cause motion sickness. Luckily, the game boasts quite a few accessibility options that help curb this and make the game more accessible to both those with color blindness and many who might have trouble adapting to the game’s controls.

To access the accessibility menu, make your way to the startup screen that allows you to select between Vanguard, Warzone, Black Ops Cold War, and Modern Warfare. There should be an option titled “accessibility” visible at the bottom of your screen. Press the start/options button to access the menu. You’ll then be presented with the following accessibility options:

Visual Settings

Interface

• Menu Text Size: Changes the text size present in menus but does not change the size of text chat messages or subtitles. You have three sizes available — default, larger, and largest.
• Subtitles: Allows you to turn subtitles on or off. You can also choose which modes you want subtitles on/off in. For example, if you want subtitles on in the campaign but off during multiplayer, you can make that adjustment here.
• Subtitles Size: Changes the size of the subtitles. Like menu text size, you have three options — default, larger, largest.
• Subtitle Background Opacity: This allows you to set a black background behind subtitles to improve readability. The default is 0.0 (no background), but you can adjust the opacity in increments of 0.10, with 1.00 giving subtitles a solid black background.
• Crosshair Bobbing: When you fire a weapon in this game, the crosshair will also move while the weapon is absorbing recoil. This setting allows you to keep the crosshair static while firing, mantling, and moving; the game advises that turning this setting off could alleviate motion sickness for some players.

Graphics

• Color Customization: A step up from the color blindness presets commonly featured in games, this lets you customize which colors are used to represent you, your team, your party, and your enemy.
• Field of View (FOV): Allows you to expand your in-game view both horizontally and vertically. The default is 80, but you can expand your FOV up to 120 or lower it to 60. Be forewarned; the game advises a larger FOV might increase your risk of motion sickness.
• Camera Movement: You can use this to adjust the intensity of shaky camera movements. The default is 100% intensity, but you can lower it to less (75%) and least (50%).
• Brightness: You can set the game’s brightness value anywhere between zero and 100, with the default being 50.
• World Motion Blur: This lets you turn off motion blur effects applied to maps as you move through them.
• Weapon Motion Blur: This lets you turn off motion blur effects applied to your weapon as you move, look around, or fire.
• Graphic Content: You can disable in-game gore and dismemberment here.

Text Chat

• Text Chat: You can simply turn text chat on or off here. It is on by default.
• Text Chat Message Size: Changes the size of text chat messages. Can be set to default, larger, or largest.
• Text Chat Sound Feedback: You can use this to enable a sound effect anytime a text chat is sent, and you can further fine-tune it to enable the sound effect only when receiving either chats from players or whisper messages.
• Text Chat Background Opacity (Menus): Allows you to set a black background behind the text chat window while browsing menus to improve readability.
• Text Chat Background Opacity (Gameplay): Same thing as above, but during gameplay.
• Profanity Filter: Automatically censors profanities sent via the text chat.

Audio

The settings here are pretty standard. You can adjust the volume of the in-game music, dialogue, and sound effects, all independent of one another. You can also turn voice chat on or off and choose whether you’d like to push a key to activate voice chat or simply have your microphone be live at all times.

Controller Settings

Basic Controls

• Aiming Input Device: This lets you pick whether to use a mouse or controller to aim during gameplay.
• Horizontal/Vertical Stick Sensitivity: This lets you adjust how much stick movement affects aiming in-game. The default is 4, but this can be set anywhere between 1 and 20.
• Button Layout Preset: Here, you can pick from one of four controller presets: Default, tactical, lefty, N0M4D/Charlie, or N0M4D/Charlie Tactical. Take a look here if you’re not a fan of the default control scheme.
• Controller Vibration: You can switch this on or off here.
• Trigger Effect: Only available on PlayStation 5 or PC with a DualSense controller. This lets you use DualSense’s adaptive triggers while playing.
• Weapon Fire Threshold: If this is on, the fire button (right trigger/R2) will simulate a gun’s trigger, with each gun calling for varying amounts of pressure to fire. If you turn this off, each gun takes the same amount of pressure to fire.

Advanced Controls

• Stick Layout Preset: These presets allow you to choose how you want to use the control sticks. There are six options — Southpaw, Legacy, Legacy Southpaw, Southpaw No Click Swap, and Legacy Southpaw No Click Swap.
• ADS Stick Swap: If you turn this on, you can make the analog sticks swap functionality while aiming down sights.
• Controller Orientation: If you’re planning on playing with the controller at an angle, you can use this setting to indicate which way you’re holding your controller, which will then rotate the directions of the analog sticks to match your controller’s orientation.
• Trigger and Stick Deadzones: You can use these options to determine how much you need to pull a trigger or move an analog stick to register an input.

Movement

• Automatic Ground Mantle: Turning this on allows you to automatically mantle over objects. Normally, you would press the jump button to do this.
• Auto Move Forward: With either a single or double tap of the movement stick, you can automatically move forward with no further input necessary.
• Automatic Sprint: By default, you have to press the sprint button to sprint. This allows you to automatically sprint whenever you move forward without the need for additional input.

Action Behavior

• Slide Behavior: This setting lets you decide whether you would like to slide by holding down the crouch button while sprinting, or by simply tapping the crouch button during a sprint.
• Aim Down Sight Behavior: By default, if you aim down sight, you will cease aiming once you release the aim button. You can set ADS to toggle here, which lets you aim down sights freely without the need to keep a button held down.
• Automatic Fire Weapon Behavior: This is on “hold” by default, which means that when firing automatic weapons, the weapon will only stop firing once you release the fire button. Setting it to “toggle” lets you press the fire button once to start firing, and you simply press it again to stop firing.
• Equipment Behavior: Same idea as the above two settings, but for tactical equipment. Setting this to “toggle” lets you press the equipment button once to ready your equipment, and then another press will throw or deploy it.
• Steady Aim Behavior: When aiming down sniper scopes, you’ll have an option to steady your aim with an on-screen button prompt. By default, you have to hold down the prompt to keep your aim steady; set it to “toggle,” and just one press will keep your aim steadied.
• Interact/Reload Behavior: This has four options, all of which determine how the reload/interact functions are used, as they share a button on controller.

Keyboard & Mouse Options

Most of the controller options outlined above are also present for those playing with a mouse and keyboard, but there are a few exclusive options available for non-controller using players:

• Mouse Sensitivity: Synonymous with horizontal/vertical stick sensitivity; adjusts how quickly you’re able to aim.
• Mouse Acceleration: Allows you to turn around quicker with a flick of your mouse, but also makes aiming harder.
• Mouse Filtering/Smoothing: Uses mouse input from the last few frames to normalize movement on the current frame. The game only recommends these if you’re looking to sacrifice precision for normalized movements.
• Look Keys Sensitivity Horizontal/Vertical: Adjusts aiming sensitivity when using keys to aim, but if you’re using a mouse, this option is virtually irrelevant.