God of War Ragnarök: God of War Ragnarok – Universal Keyboard and Mouse Binds

CONTEXT

Over the years I have played a few games that have come to influence key binds that I use more and more in order to create a more unified experience between different games.

The main games I credit as influences to these binds are:

• Batman: Arkham City
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II
• Dishonored
• Apex Legends
• Lies of P

I’m not too sure why I wrote this guide, I just thought it would be fun to run through my binds and my justifications for using them.

I will also not be running through each and every setting, mostly just the ones I changed and or feel need further justification.

CHALLENGE LEVEL

Aim Assist – Off

I like to have very little assistance when it comes to aim seeing as I am a keyboard and mouse player and do not feel right applying any form of aim assist that may lead to my aim getting lazier. However the choice is yours and really just up to personal preference, it is a single player narrative game after all.

PLAYSTYLE

Auto Pick Up – Economy

It can be easy to miss loot if you fail to spot it on the ground; having this action on means Kratos will automatically pick up loot he moves over excluding health and rage pick ups. It does not activate during combat so don’t be worried that an animation will impact your attack times or rhythm. This is also not a skill based mechanic in the game so I personally do not mind it being automated.

Tutorial Mode – Minimal

I do not need my hand held, I can remember how to perform actions and if not there is a moves list.

Reduced Puzzle Hints – On

Again, I do not need my hand held.

TOUCH PAD SHORTCUTS

Touch Pad Button – Map Only

If there is only one in-game ‘menu’ button then I prefer to be sent to the map when I press the bind and then navigating to other menus such as ‘Skills’ or ‘Codex’ manually.

HUD

Persistent Dot – Small

I prefer a marker on screen indicating where my mouse is pointing to in order to keep building my hand eye co-ordination.

GAME CONTROLS

Interact – E / SPCE

I decided to include SPCE as an interact button as a few of the interactions in-game feel like a jumping motion, so to keep a more universal feel across my games I use this to jump where it feel appropriate.

Evade – L ALT

Having played the Witcher III L ALT has felt like a very intuitive bind for dodge, it is right next to what i would use for crouch (C) and what I would use for jump (SPCE). This means most of my non directional movement keys are managed by my thumb and can feel more consistent across my games.

Signature Weapon Ability – R

Left this as default; recalling the axe feels akin to reloading a weapon in Call of Duty so it feels natural.

Atreus Action – F

Left this as default; in games where E is the primary interact bind I use F as a less regularly used ability bind.

Block / Parry – L CTRL

This is carried over straight from Dishonored and my modified binds in Lies of P. I did not like this bind at first but after a while the logic to block while still maintaining my fingers on my directional movement keys (WASD) felt very intuitive. In Lies of P the default block / parry key was SHFT but seeing as that conflicted with the sprint action in my other games i changed it to CTRL. Lies of P’s decision to make block a more ‘dedicated’ action which did not require my fingers to abandon the movement keys (much like sprinting in other games) inspired me to adopt this bind universally.

Aim – MOUSE 2 (RIGHT)

This might be a controversial bind; in games that incorporate an aim mechanic it feels intuitive to use MOUSE 2 (right click) to ‘aim down sights’. This is influenced by the likes of Call of Duty even though this is a third person action game and not a shooter of any kind I would still like to maintain a sense of consistency here.

Light Attack – MOUSE 1 (LEFT)

Left this as default; MOUSE 1 is usually the shoot or ‘attack’ button in other games such as the Arkham series so I left this alone.

Heavy Attack – V

Here we see the knock on effect of having MOUSE 2 as aim; I chose the V bind as it is my universal bind for melee in games that require aiming. The V bind also feels like a dedicated action key that makes heavy attacks feel more impactful (in my mind anyway).

Primary Weapon – 1 / MOUSE 4 / SCROLL WHEEL UP

Left this as default; This makes intuitive sense if familiar with games like Apex Legends where weapons are bound to the number keys above WASD. Alternatively, using the SCROLL WHEEL feels just as intuitive if more familiar with older Call of Duty titles.

Secondary Weapon – 2 – MOUSE 5 / SCROLL WHEEL DOWN

Left this as default; -see ‘Primary weapon’ bind for description-

Bare Hands – 3

Left as default; Again sharing familiarity with Apex Legends this bind is used to sheath/stash your weapons away.

Arrow Type – T

Left as default; This bind feels out of the way and unintrusive which makes it an appropriate bind for a toggleable modifying action. This is also the bind I use in Doom Eternal in order to ‘swap weapon mods’.

Lock-On Camera – MOUSE 3 (MIDDLE)

Left as default; This bind aligns with Lies of P and other Souls-like games as the universal bind for locking on to an enemy to focus attack direction.

Sprint – L SHFT

Left as default; This sort of speaks for itself if you have played most other PC games on default binds for a while.

Move Forward – W
Move Left – A
Move Back – S
Move Right – D

Left as default; -see ‘Sprint’ bind for description-

MENU CONTROLS

Weapons – I / M

Left this as default; I have included the M key as a secondary bind for this action due to other games using this as the bind for opening the map. This bind will open the map due to previously changing the TOUCH PAD BUTTON to ‘Map Only’.

CONTROLLER SETTINGS

Aim Style – Hold

Left this as default; I personally prefer holding my aim bind rather than toggling it.

Block Style – Hold

Left this as default; This matches the default behaviour of most other games with a Block / Parry mechanic.

Evade Style – Default

Left this as default; I prefer to be in complete control of my dodge movement even if it means inputting the same action twice. The other options automate certain elements of the dodge behaviour.

Neutral Evade – On

This setting coincides with the default dodge behaviour in Lies of P and so has been chosen for consistency purposes.

Stun Grab Enemies – Hold E

I changed this from its default bind of MOUSE 3 (MIDDLE) in order to minimise unintended actions; I do not want to perform a camera lock on instead of a Stun Grab.

Spartan Rage – L SHFT + MOUSE 3 (MIDDLE)

Left this as default; I had left this as default in the original game as well so kept it here as other options break consistency. However, if the option was available i would bind this action to the Z key as that would match my ‘Ultimate Ability’ bind in Apex Legends.

Quick Turn – Off

I am using a mouse, I can turn quickly should I need to. This is personal preference but I would prefer to not have an accidental action occur.

DISPLAY

Latency Reduction – Reflex On

This makes mouse inputs feel more responsive so I use it to make my mouse feel as consistent as possible between different games. In this game I am GPU bound meaning it is my bottle cap stopping me from getting better performance. However, if you are CPU bound switch this to “Reflex On + Boost”.

I believe the ‘Reflex On’ setting leverages the CPU while ‘Reflex On + Boost’ leverages the GPU (Correct me if I am wrong).

GRAPHICS

Film Grain – 0

I prefer picture clarity over a visually busy image in games so I tend to turn off or lower filter type effects/settings.

Motion Blur – 0

-refer to ‘Film Grain’ for description-

CAMERA

Mouse Horizontal Speed – 5

Mouse Vertical Speed – 6

Mouse Aim Horizontal Speed – 6

Mouse Aim Vertical Speed – 7

The first value is personal preference however I should let you know how this game handles horizontal (X) and vertical (Y) axis mouse sensitivities.

It would seem that the vertical (Y) axis sensitivity or ‘Speed’ is lower than the horizontal (X) axis sensitivity when both are set to the same number.

This means that in this case because my looking left and right sensitivity is set to 5 I will have my looking up and down sensitivity a singe value higher, in this case 6. This makes the sensitivities feel much more comparable in sensation.

More so, when it comes to aim sensitivity or ‘Speed’ in order to achieve a 1:1 sensitivity matching the regular sensitivity the horizontal values need to be off set by a single value.

I do not like my aim to slow down when I aim so I try to get as close to a 1:1 sensitivity in the games I play. This means that in this case because my regular horizontal sensitivity is 5 then my aim sensitivity should be set to 6 in order to replicate a similar consistency between the two types of sensitivity. Following this my vertical aim sensitivity should be set to 7 in order to maintain a more consistent feeling with the horizontal aim sensitivity.

SUBTITLES & CAPTIONS

Subtitle & Caption Blur – Off

I turn this off to clean up the presentation of subtitles which improves picture clarity. This is just personal preference.

AUDIO USABILITY

Voice Boost – On

Character dialogue in this game sound distant or low for some reason as of Patch 5 so I use this in attempts to make character dialogue clearer and more audible.