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Every year, I like to take a moment to check
in with the games biz, and see how things
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are going in terms of accessibility.
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That’s the art of making a game playable
for a wider group of people - by employing
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options and design decisions that can help
remove the barriers that get in the way of
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the fun.
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For example - if someone struggles to hear
the dialogue, subtitles can give you the same
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information in text form.
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If someone can’t distinguish between two
colours, they can be made more distinct with
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symbols or a custom colour palette.
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And if someone’s just struggling to get
through a game, they can get a helping hand
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through an assist mode.
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So, how did the games of 2021 fare in this
regard?
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Well, I’m Mark Brown, and this is Game Maker’s
Toolkit.
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So, I started with the blockbusters.
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I picked 25 of the most noteworthy, best-selling,
triple A games released in the last 12 months
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- from Halo Infinite to Ratchet and Clank,
from Deathloop to Metroid Dread, from Battlefield
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2042 to Age of Empires - and then I assessed
the accessibility options on show.
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Here’s what I found.
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Let’s start with controls.
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As ever, a really important option is the
ability to change what the buttons do - and
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of the games I played this year, a whopping
70 percent of them offer full remapping.
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That is awesome - that number just keeps on
growing.
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And a few more offer presets, which is better
than nothing.
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A stand-out game for controls is Ratchet & Clank:
Rift Apart.
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You can fully remap the controls, and put
shortcuts to specific inputs on the d-pad.
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Plus, for pretty much every button that you
need to hold down - you can instead make it
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toggle that action on and off.
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There’s also a really strong aim assist,
and you can even turn that into a lock-on.
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You can automatically rotate the camera behind
your character.
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You can simplify all traversal down to a single
button.
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And more - it’s great.
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Another stand-out game is Far Cry 6 - it divides
every button on the controller into three
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different actions - press, hold, and double
tap - and can freely map any action between
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any of those slots.
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There’s also a quick “no stick presses
mode” to instantly remove all inputs related
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to clicking in the analogue sticks.
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Also worth celebrating is Battlefield 2042
for its enormous array of options regarding
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controller sensitivity, right down to the
different sized scopes.
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And Riders Republic, which lets you set unique
control schemes for its endless methods of transport.
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I’m also a fan of games that let you bypass
button-bashing QTEs, which includes It Takes
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Two, Guardians of the Galaxy, and House of
Ashes.
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As for games that need to see me after class
- well, I’m definitely not a fan of all
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these games with sluggish, Destiny-inspired
virtual cursors on their menus - including
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Deathloop and Outriders.
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They can be a nightmare for accessibility.
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And they’re just horrible in general, yuck.
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Thankfully, Far Cry 6 and Pokemon Snap, which
also have these cursors, let you click through
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the menus with the d-pad, as well.
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But the worst offender of the year?
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Well, I asked my Twitter followers to name
games with poor accessibility and was hit
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with a wave of tweets all mentioning the same
game: Metroid Dread.
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And, I’ve got to agree: its full of bizarre
moves that require multiple buttons to be
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held down, there are plenty of bits that require
very granular movements of the analogue stick,
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and there are absolutely no controller options
in the menu.
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Big fat F right there.
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Next up, audio.
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A big deal here is subtitles.
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As ever we’re looking for subtitles that
are large.
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That contrast well against the background.
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And that show you the speaker’s name.
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And if you can change any of those settings
in the options, it’s even better.
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Again, about 70 percent of the games in my
sample provided subtitle options… beyond
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“on and off”.
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So, Guardians of the Galaxy is a good one
to look at - turn on all the settings and
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you can get big clear text, on a black background,
with speaker names.
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And you can even increase the letting spacing
and turn on closed captions to get subtitles
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for sound effects.
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Other stand-out games include Hitman 3, which
can show a speech bubble over a character’s
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head, to show exactly who is speaking.
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And Far Cry 6, which continues the series’
tradition of providing captions for nearby
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audio sources - complete with an arrow and
distance.
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But there are still games that mess this up.
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Outriders has too much text per line, and
the words are way too small.
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Battlefield forgot to provide subtitles for
its intro cutscene.
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Resident Evil Village has no way of expressing
its excellent audio design to a player who
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is hard of hearing.
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And Tales of Arise has acceptable subtitles
in its cutscenes, pretty good dialogue windows
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when chatting to characters, but microscopic
words during gameplay and combat.
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Also worth noting is just how many games provide
a screen reader for menu narration.
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Forza Horizon 5, Age of Empires IV, It Takes
Two, Far Cry 6, Riders Republic, Battlefield,
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and Back 4 Blood all include this powerful
feature.
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Over to visuals, now.
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I’m looking for options to make it easier
to see or read the key elements in the game
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world, the heads up display, and the text
in the menus.
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Some games do this by default with nice clear
fonts and chunky UI elements - but other games
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would do well to provide options.
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So Age of Empires lets you crank up the size
of the game’s UI.
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Life is Strange: True Colours lets you drop
the handwritten text in favour of a clean font.
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And House of Ashes lets you increase the text
size.
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Far Cry 6 goes further by letting you highlight
enemies and pick-ups with a coloured outline
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of your choice.
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And Ratchet goes further still, allowing you
to desaturate the background entirely - and
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then turn enemies, pick-ups, and more into
big, easy-to-read blobs of colour.
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Colourblind settings are also super important.
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Far Cry 6 wins again, here - you can independently
choose the colours of pretty much everything
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in the game.
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Battlefield’s got good options here, too.
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Many other games go for full screen filters,
which… are still pretty iffy in terms of
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effectiveness.
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As for misses: Outriders has painfully small
text at times, and an option to turn on large
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fonts doesn’t do much at all.
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I had to check I had actually turned it on.
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And Deathloop has this absurd font in its
menus, and no way to change it.
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In general, this is still the feature that
most games neglect, and that sucks.
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Finally, there’s the ever-contentious category
of difficulty.
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Now, with no FromSoftware game released this
year, I thought we might just skip the tiresome
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“should Dark Souls have an easy mode”
debate in 2021 - but, alas, other games
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took up the mantel, instead.
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Notably Metroid Dread, Returnal, and Deathloop
all spawned countless articles and Twitter arguments.
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But I’ve got no interest in digging that
up again - so, instead, let’s just look
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at some games that chose to let players dictate
their own difficulty level this year.
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Forza Horizon has always been good at this,
and game number 5 is no exception: you can
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choose just how much you want you car to take
care of steering and braking, you can decide
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how aggressive your rival racers will be,
and you can even slow down the entire game
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to increase reaction times.
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Ratchet also provides slow-mo - but, here,
it can be turned on and off with a button
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press so you’re not having to move through
molasses at all times.
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Psychnonauts 2 lets you get rid of fall damage,
make Raz more powerful, or even turn on invincibility.
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And Guardians of the Galaxy lets you tweak
a ridiculously large array of options to build
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your own custom difficulty mode.
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A little overwhelming, perhaps, but nice to
see - especially alongside some more standard,
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designer-curated difficulty settings.
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So those are the main features you’re going
to see in games - alongside a few other standards
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like screen shake and camera bob for motion
sickness, and discrete volume knobs to help
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players isolate the key sounds.
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But there are some cool extra features, in
specific games, worth noting, too - like these
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optional pop-ups in Life is Strange, which
can warn you about upcoming increases in volume
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or brightness.
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I also like this Dead Space-style navigation
line in Outriders for helping players find
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their way to the waypoint.
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And I love how both Forza Horizon 5 and Halo
Infinite have added prosthetics to their character creators.
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Now, while it’s great for these features
to be there on launch day, I think it would
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be wrong to ignore older games that got updated
with new accessibility features in 2021.
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For example, Sea of Thieves is constantly
adding new accessibility options in pretty
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much every update.
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Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice added stuff
like controller remapping and colourblind settings.
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Amnesia: Rebirth received a horror-free Adventure
Mode, similar to SOMA’s Safe Mode.
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Disco Elysium: The Final Cut added full voice
acting to the whole game.
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And even that dodgy GTA remake added some
new accessibility options to the old games.
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So, who is really driving this push for accessibility?
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As in, which companies are doing the best
work in this field?
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Well, Microsoft has absolutely ran with it
in 2021.
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It updated its Xbox Accessibility Guidelines,
and now lets developers on the platform submit
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their games for evaluation and feedback.
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It released a free, four hour accessibility
training course.
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It added accessibility tags to the Microsoft
Store.
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And introduced new console features like Night
Mode, quick settings, and colour filters.
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And we see this ripple out into the publisher’s
games, with a huge number of features across
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Age of Empires, Halo Infinite, and Forza Horizon
5.
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That last one is really interesting: creative
director Mike Brown - no relation - explained
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that the studio made accessibility a core
pillar of the game’s design.
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Which meant it would feed into every system
in the game, and would not get cut to meet deadlines.
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An absolute power move.
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Sony also does good work - for example, there’s
now a PlayStation Store page with accessible games.
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But it seems like it’s more down to individual
studios to figure this stuff out.
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Like Insomniac, which is another developer
that really puts accessibility at the centre
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of its game design.
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Insomniac is also a really good example of
how accessibility options can be re-used across
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games, as many of the smart choices in Ratchet
and Clank are actually just ripped straight
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out of last year’s Miles Morales.
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Likewise, over at Ubisoft - another studio
that does strong work in this space - many
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of the features in Far Cry 6 are lifted from
previous entries.
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EA also has strong accessibility initiatives,
and this year it released five accessibility
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patents from its legal grasp - including the
fab ping system in Apex Legends.
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And Square Enix has some good stuff going
on - you’ll see smart accessibility options
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all throughout Life is Strange and Guardians
of the Galaxy.
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But as for disappointing outliers?
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Well… as usual, it’s the games made in
Japan.
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Titles like Shin Megami Tensei, Persona 5
Strikers, Guilty Gear and Resident Evil are
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missing plenty of options that have become
almost industry standard in the west.
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Like, remember those stats about 70 percent
of games having controller remapping and 70
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percent having options for subtitles?
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Well, remove the Japanese games and that rises
to 80 and 100 percent.
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There are some exceptions - Monster Hunter
Rise has a surprising number of features,
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and New Pokemon Snap isn’t too shabby - but,
on the whole, Japan is bringing the biz down.
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But that’s just the world of big blockbuster
games.
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You know, for my main assessment, I feel like
it’s only fare to hold those with multi-million
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dollar budgets to account.
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But, still, indie games are absolutely packed
with clever, useful and thoughtful accessibility options.
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Here’s just a few:
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Boyfriend Dungeon has a content warning for
its challenging themes - and also lets you
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turn off a feature where your mum calls you
up with advice, in case that makes certain
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players uncomfortable.
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Boomerang X has great contrast options, like
letting you highlight key enemies with a colour
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of your choice.
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Chicory lets you fiddle with endless settings
- letting you turn off everything from flashing
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effects to moist sound effects. Ew.
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Loop Hero’s got a retro aesthetic, but you
can increase readability by turning off the
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CRT effect and switching the pixel font to
a standard one.
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Toodee and Topdee’s got an assist mode with
game speed and infinite lives.
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The new Outer Wilds DLC lets you turn off
spooky jump scares.
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And we saw some excellent audio-only games
that can be played without sight, like action
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adventure The Vale: Shadow of the Crown, and
reckless driving game Blind Drive, which is
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about using the incredible audio design to
know when to swerve into another lane.
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*Car sounds*
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*Horn* *Crash* *Broken Glass*
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So - on the whole - I’m impressed.
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Almost every game I sampled has some option
intended to make the game playable to those
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with specific needs.
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More than half of the games feature a dedicated
accessibility or assist menu.
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And many have these options available as soon
as the game loads up for the first time, or
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have a screen reader turned on by default.
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But here’s the thing.
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All of this is, almost exactly what I said
in last year’s video.
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You know, key features like subtitles and
controller remapping are in the majority of games.
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Indie devs, and companies like Microsoft,
EA, and Ubisoft are doing great.
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And Japan is sadly lagging behind.
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So I feel like we’re now at a point where
accessibility is just… a given in games.
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Which is excellent!
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And a huge change.
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Like, if we look, at say, Eurogamer in 2011
- there wasn’t a single article that mentioned
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accessibility or disability.
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Ten years later, there are dozens of reports
on features, and players, and company initiatives,
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and so on.
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Accessibility is just here, and it’s here
to stay.
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But now… it’s time to make this stuff
work… properly.
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You see, as awesome as it is to see these
features in the menu - they’re not, always,
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perfect in execution.
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Those excellent subtitles in Guardians of
the Galaxy?
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Great… until they glitch out like this.
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Deathloop lets you toggle on running - but
not aiming, and Hitman 3 lets you toggle on
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aiming - but not running.
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Far Cry 6’s captions just says “animal
noise”, whether that’s a harmless bird
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or a killer crocodile.
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And Battlefield’s menu narrator mispronounces
the first two words it has to say.
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NARRATOR: “Menu Narration ‘Die-sable’.
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Menu Narration ‘Innable’.
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Menu Narration ‘Die-sable’.
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Menu Narration ‘Innable’.”
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What is this, a GMTK episode?
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So, at this point, I can safely say “yes,
lots of games have lots of accessibility options”.
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Now the question is - “are they any good?”
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It’s no longer that noteworthy for a game
to have these features - now, they need to
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be robust and reliable.
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And I think we’ll get there, as devs hire
more consultants, and bake this stuff into
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their games engines, and share their knowledge,
and iterate based on feedback and telemetry.
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But that’s going to be difficult for me
to ascertain.
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I don’t live with a disability, so I don’t
need to rely on these options and, I don’t
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have to judge their effectiveness every time
I play.
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Thankfully, there are sites like CanIPlayThat
and DAGER, who are putting in the hard work
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to thoroughly review these games from an accessibility
perspective - using gamers with disabilities
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as their reviewers.
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There’s also the Taming Gaming database
- and, any indie devs watching can get their
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game listed by DMing the site over on Twitter.
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But, ultimately, I think this means I need
to cover accessibility in a different way.
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So, this is probably the last annual wrap-up
of this type.
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But don’t worry - accessibility is not going
anywhere.
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It’s one of the key values for how I run
GMTK - whether I’m using it as a lens to
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analyse game design, or putting full subtitles
on every video on this channel.
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So perhaps there are just better ways for me to
talk about it going forward.
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That starts with me putting accessibility
options in my own work, over in my game dev
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series Developing.
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More on that soon.
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And I’ll continue to think about how I can
cover this topic in 2022.
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Until then, thanks so much for watching.
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And thanks to the gamers and consultants who
helped out on this video.
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See you soon.