A guide to immersion options in the zombie apocalypse.
Guide to Maximum Immersion
All credit goes to Lhee!
Introduction
As someone who enjoys HUDless gaming, especially in VR, I wanted to make a guide for maximizing immersion by removing HUD elements. Most of this information is probably obvious, but hopefully it helps anyone looking to get more immersed in the game world.
Before modifying the HUD options, you should have a basic understanding of the game mechanics such as managing Stamina, Hunger, Health, & Disease, as well as combat basics.
Menu Options
These are the menu options that affect immersion level.
In gameplay, you can enable the Voice Immersion checkbox. This will allow your microphone to be heard ‘in-game’ by the walkers and humans. This can be useful for luring enemies, or for making things even more hectic when you’re panicking or just talking to yourself.
In HUD, there are several choices that can be modified.
Hide Grapple UI: Check this once you know how to shake off a walker that has grabbed you.
Hide Grab UI: This is the only UI I leave on, you can still use haptic feedback if you hide it, but the game does not always reliably target what you’re reaching for, especially where there are multiple objects, and it’s not very intrusive compared to the others. Hide it for Ultra Max Immersion.
Hide NPC Threat UI: Check this and pay close attention to the demeanor and verbal warnings from NPCs. It’s pretty obvious when they are hostile, and when they are merely on guard they will usually just warn you away unless you are already trespassing.
Hide Trespass Warning: Check this, and listen for the ‘boowoop’ birdcall noise that sounds when you cross into faction territory. Most of the strongholds have obvious borders, usually with guards stationed that will warn you back when you approach.
Enable HUD: Uncheck this and use the wristwatch to keep track of your health and stamina.
Other
The game features dynamic music, it will be more dramatic if enemies are chasing or hunting you, and of course you should be familiar with the ‘violin strings’ sound effect when a walker has spotted you. It might be even more immersive if that could be disabled, but I’m not aware of an option for that.
Running low on stamina will darken the edges of your screen, and your character will start to breathe heavily. If this is happening a lot, check your watch to see if you might need to eat something.
Food buffs will no longer have a HUD icon, but they tend to last until you sleep, so just remember to plan your meals and keep track of what you’ve eaten that day if you tend to rely on the Cajun cuisine.
Walker Guts will add a red filter to your vision and you’ll hear buzzing flies, it should be pretty obvious when this wears off. You could keep a piece of rotten meat in your headset for Ultimate Immersion mode but I don’t recommend that. There is such a thing as taking it too far.
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