How to force mono audio in Horizon Forbidden West

Horizon Forbidden West has an extensive settings menu where you can customize the entire game to suit your needs and preferences. Of course, this extends to the game’s audio, which you can chop and change to be best suited for whatever device you’re listening on, and you can even change the sound modes. This guide explains how to force mono audio.

Where to change mono and stereo audio settings

You can force mono audio in Horizon Forbidden West by pressing the start button and opening the settings menu. Scroll across the top to the audio subheading, and then move down the page until you find the Force Mono Audio setting. This is set to “off” by default but will force mono audio when you switch it to “on”.

Mono audio isn’t necessarily better than stereo, but some prefer it. Stereo sounds more detailed, realistic, and wider. However, you can encounter phase cancellation issues with stereo audio, leaving it feeling hollow, and you often miss certain beats or sounds. This doesn’t happen with mono, and that’s why some people prefer it. We like to use mono audio because it’s sometimes hard to discern voices or specific sounds when stereo audio makes you hear everything at once. This can make Horizon Forbidden West particularly challenging if you’re hard of hearing.