Q.
2023 was considered a great year for games. Did that translate into a great year for accessibility?
“Some of the biggest releases of 2023 still excluded players still work to be
Stacey Jenkins
Cari Watterton: Absolutely! We have seen major AAA titles launch with some superb accessibility features. These include Jedi: Survivor, which was released with “slow time” mechanics allowing players to change the requirements for reaction speeds to suit their pace. Also, the remake of horror classic Dead Space included innovative Trigger Warnings systems which helped to make horror more approachable. To see such mainstream hits launching with features like these represents a huge leap forward for the industry and demonstrates how far the accessibility movement has come.
Sea of Thieves has been celebrated for its audio aiming cues
clearly in the GDC developer satisfaction, this year the number of devs who said their game considered accessibility was 48%, an increase of nearly 10% on the previous year. 48% is clearly not where we need to be, there’s a lot of work still needed, but it’s encouraging to see it still moving squarely in the right direction.
SightlessKombat: Speaking as a gamer without sight, it’s actually a tough question to answer in a way. Though I really wanted to enjoy critically acclaimed titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 and couldn’t, as they didn’t have enough accessibility to allow me to engage with them. As has been the case with numerous other that allowed for greater playability. I know a fair number of players who had their interest revived in the medium because developers were including them by adding things like audio description, menu narration and audio aim cues to titles where they weren’t previously present. I think having people being able to share their feedback on what works and what doesn’t force for change. It’s one of the big ways to make sure gamers across the spectrum of sight loss, including gamers without sight, keep getting more games to play without the need for assistance. Of course there’s a long way to go, but last year was one of the most bountiful years we’ve seen in terms of positive growth, at least in my opinion.
Ian Hamilton: Yes, progress in accessibility is pretty much exponential. The pace of change 2021-2022 was much bigger than 2020- bigger again. And progress not only in terms of the breadth and depth of accessibility in games, but the other things that sit around it too - accessibility resources, accessibility of events, hardware, comms. It’s shown pretty
20 | MCV/DEVELOP April/May 2024
Laura Dale: There were some unfortunate setbacks, such as PlayStation and Xbox restricting support for third party devices which but generally speaking it was a positive year. The release of the PlayStation Access Controller saw us reach a point where all three accessibility controller at once, which is a super exciting milestone. We’re seeing increased industry adoption of audio descriptions for cutscenes, alongside High Contrast visuals becoming more common outside of PlayStation some impressive steps forward, with Street Fighter 6 introducing a more accessible control scheme and Mortal Kombat adding audio descriptions to fatalities. Perhaps most notably we saw Ubisoft detailing the accessibility settings options available for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown the same day the game was announced, seven months ahead of release. Progress might not be consistent, but the year about.
Stacey Jenkins: Absolutely! We had some excellent accessibility wins in games like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Diablo IV, Mortal Kombat 1, Street Fighter 6… But we should still acknowledge that some of the biggest releases still work to be done across the industry. We need to stay curious, listen to players, and continue building on what we’ve done before to come up with new innovations and solutions
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
