Subtitles
I recently started playing the game Star Wars Outlaws (PS5); if you're not familiar with the game, the short description is - you play a character who is - for lack of a better word - an outlaw, and you play various missions to gain favour between three different crime factions. The game itself is an "open world" model meaning you can freely interact with the environment and take on different missions aside from the main story.
It's the main story that has my attention - specifically, subtitles. I'm currently split on whether or not I want to leave subtitles turned on, or off. The game defaults to them being on, something that isn't immediately apparent unless you go into the settings before starting the game proper. If you dig a little deeper there are various options surrounding subtitles - from size and position of the subtitles to background colours, etc.
More importantly you can turn them off entirely (leaving subtitles only for alien languages - though I think that's even optional, if you speak Huttese I guess). I mentioned I'm split on subtitles - here's why:
For starters, feel like they detract from the game world as they are just right there in front of the animations and you're not getting the full view of what you're watching. While yes, this is a game where you are controlling the main character, there is an aspect of watching the game that is fun as well. You're watching a movie but you're controlling the outcome, to an extent.
But the other side of this game is that sometimes I can't quite make out all the words - because a lot of it is made up gibberish because this is a Star Wars game after all. So sometimes I miss things, that maybe are helpful for the game? I don't know, I'm not far into it. So I might want subtitles on to help give me hints for playing.
But going back to the first reason, I also find myself incredibly distracted by subtitles when I'm watching things. I find myself reading the subtitles, instead of watching what's on the screen. I can't be the only one that falls into this trap, can I? Yes, I like being able to understand what's spoken on screen, but I also want to take in the visuals. Having words pop up at the bottom, where I can read faster than they're spoken, distracts me.
I don't know what the solution is, but I posted in reddit about it today and while there were mixed reactions (I asked for overall opinions) I think I'm going to try a couple of options:
- Turn them off entirely; or
- Try to reduce the size of the subtitles so that they're not so intrusive.