The 2021 video games that pushed accessibility farther

With each year that inclusive games becomes a stronger focus for studios, we see amazing and innovative innovations that drive what’s possible in accessible games. While the start of 2021 has been lackluster in this regard, the industry more than made up for that disappointment with a slew of releases that can be accessed as the year progresses. The following seven games helped set a new standard in accessible games.

Horror Tales: Wine

Photo: Carlos Coronado

We’ve seen countless indie games implement various accessibility features over the past few years. with Horror Tales: WineDeveloper Carlos Coronado has really built his impressive track record with accessibility features, going so far as to mention them in the game’s official description on storefronts.

Where this game excels is in the vision upgrades. The game features several text size options, eight visual styles for subtitles (with examples of each shown in the list), and multiple styles, my personal favorite, for both object outlines and crosshairs. These patterns range from the standard simple line or point of intersection, to thick and bold lines. Horror Tales: Wine It is a true rarity of being a horror game designed with visual accessibility in mind.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

Insomniac is no stranger to making accessible games Spider-Man from Marvel And Spider-Man: Miles Morales Both were pioneers in accessibility at the time of their respective release, with features such as customizable subtitle text size, contrast options, Spider-Sense visibility and a full console reset. This year, Insomniac pushed the envelope even further Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, making it one of the most accessible releases in 2021.

Ratchet and Clank offer some incredibly useful options: High Contrast Mode (similar to Spider-Man: Miles Morales) and simplified controls that allow full gameplay using the D-pad, face buttons, and R2. rift regardless It also implements a “simplified traversal” feature that links all traversals to the circle button. rift regardlessHowever, the standout feature of the game is the speed of the game, which allows players to play in essentially slow motion, giving them more time to react and make decisions in combat and while exploring the world.

Valley: Shadow of the Crown

Photo: Squirrel Landing/Creative Bytes Studios

Valley: Shadow of the Crown It is a new RPG game genre for soundtracks, aiming to achieve AAA production values ​​in sound design and voice acting. Designed to be fully playable – and even more so, fun – for blind players, the valley It depends entirely on two senses: hearing and touch. To play successfully, players must listen for the finest audio cues, which telegraph how the enemy is about to attack them. Traversing the world also depends on audio alone: ​​the only way for players to tell them they’ve gone the wrong way and need to reorient themselves is to listen to the heroine’s subtle comments. While these are common principles in audio games, the valley Developer Falling Squirrel has succeeded in bringing them to a wider audience. (The game received a nomination for Innovation in Accessibility at this year’s Game Awards.)

Audio-only experiences can be a challenge for some sighted players due to the lack of visual anchors, but the valley Performs small light orbs that float around the screen. These tell the sighted players if they are in or out, and whether it is day or night. While the story is as engaging and challenging as any RPG, the valley It presents a particular challenge in how it flips text on sighted players, removing sight from the equation, and thus, the main sense that many of us have relied on to be “good” at games. The result is a great RPG for modern consoles that also happens to be fully playable for blind people.

Dandelion: a colorful story

Photo: Alexis Dean-Jones / Chicory Team

Dandelion: a colorful story It is about painting a world stripped of its color. And while this may seem unavailable to color-blind players, developer Greg Lobanov dandelion To be as comprehensive as possible. It features a robust set of standard accessibility features – including text readability and text effect options – but also introduced some new accessibility considerations.

Eye-strain settings make the stark white world in its uncoloured state more bearable, and the graphic mechanic tied to PlayStation 5’s DualSense touchpad And Right stick, which makes drawing access easier than it would be with a mechanic working on the touchpad only. dandelion It also features several challenging, cognitive, and emotional accessibility options. Players can toggle the option to skip boss fights, limit the number of clicks a character can take, and toggle content warnings when topics like narrative depression are approaching. Content warnings were inspired by the work done on Ikenfell, is a great example of how developers can learn from and build on each other’s accessibility successes.

Life is Strange: True Colors

Photo: Deck Nine / Square Enix

Life is Strange is known for telling emotional stories through fast paced action. Fast time events are known to be largely inaccessible. But with the release of Life is Strange: True ColorsHowever, developer Deck Nine has fixed this massive barrier by introducing both skippable QTEs and an adjustable timer for important dialog options.

By combining these options with new features such as volume and brightness warnings, configurable text presentation, toggle hold and tap, and an indication when players make a choice to change the narration, Square Enix delivered the most accessible Life is Strange game yet.

Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5 A visually stunning world that also entices many players to explore. But with its latest release, Playground Games has also introduced the most comprehensive and accessible game in the open world racing series to date.

Apart from allowing players to create avatars with prosthetic limbs, Forza Horizon 5 too It features features such as configurable game speed for offline play, braking and steering assists, and multiple translation options. decisively, Forza Horizon 5 It also allows players to progress through the story even if they frequently fail difficult story-based challenges. With these additions Forza Horizon 5 It is the first Horizon game where multiple disabled players can compete head-to-head with their non-disabled peers.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy

Photo: Eidos Montreal/Square Enix via Polygon

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy It was the surprise match of the year that makes you happy. Yes, the narration is light, funny, and well written – but the accessibility of the game allows many players with disabilities to feel good while playing it. Guardians of the GalaxyAnd, in some cases, it has embraced an all-encompassing design of what can often look like a Band-Aid version of the accessibility settings. Chief among them is the fact that Star-Lord Vector mode doubles as a High Contrast mode, improving visual accessibility in a fundamental, not additive, way.

Guardians of the Galaxy It is also the first modern game to have closed captions that match the quality of those in movies and TV shows. Deaf or hard of hearing players can be more immersed in the game world by ‘hearing subtitles’, resizable subtitles and closed captioning. The game also features cognitive accessibility options, such as an audio focus mode, which reduces all non-essential sounds. It also allows players to extend the target reminder timer and keep the target visible for a longer period. Guardians of the Galaxy He set a new industry standard for accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing and demonstrated what’s possible with comprehensive design ideas applied to video games.

Courtney Craven is the founder and CEO can i play that, where they lead workshops and write reviews and features that focus on accessibility. They also do accessibility consulting in the gaming industry and higher education and have published files The first fictional novel in 2021.