ACCESSIBILITY IN VIDEO GAMES

2024

VALUE PROPOSITION

  • Benchmark state-of-the-art accessibility techniques to keep up with the industry

METHOD

  • Exploratory research

IMPACT

  • Expectation is to enhance motivation in production teams to further work on accessibility techniques of certain game mechanics or systems to match users’ needs

  • Expectation to increase sales due to the lack of video games targeting this market segment

RESULTS

Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes

Cognitive accessibility

Positives

  • QTEs are fairly common in this type of narrative game. There is an option to disable QTEs’ time out, which still supports the mechanic of branching narrative and the control of the player by avoiding cognitive overload of making a decision at the same time of a physically demanding task.

  • The game contains a tutorial of the controls that is gradually paced with the progression of the narrative. The tutorial is improved by the fact that it is contextual, for an effective storing and retrieving of the information over time, as well as the use of both text and button icons, useful for players with reading difficulties. Additionally, the game includes reminders of controls during gameplay with both text and button icons, which reduces the need to remember them and also supports returning players after a longer pause between playsessions.

METHODOLOGY

  • Analysis of four video games according to Game Accessibility Guidelines (GAG) in six dimensions:

    • Cognitive

    • Vision

    • Hearing

    • Motor

  • Analysis of two positive points and two negative points for each dimension

  • Only one dimension per video game was considered

Negatives

  • Players with short- or long-term memory impairments may find it difficult to remember what happened up until that point in the narrative. This game should support a story recap to allow a better follow-up and understanding of progression, particularly for prolonged pauses between playsessions.

  • The game contains a warning “may contain flashing lights” at start, although it does not allow players to take any action to be able to play if they are afflicted by this time of imagery. Similarly to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla that starts with menu narration as default even before the main menu, this game should contain an option at start for players with photosensitive epilepsy, which could be disabled in the settings. The Harding Flashing and Pattern Analyzer Test could be used as an assessment tool.

Negatives

  • The game features a non-branching level design with minimal side-tracking or exploration, which means that for every given location there is always a single way forward typically conveyed by visual level design elements, such as, lighting or prop placement. For players with partial or total visual impairments, these elements may be difficult or impossible to identify. A possible solution could be an option to auto-align the camera or the player towards the correct path during navigation (which is aligned with how it already uses auto-lock for combat). Alternatively, the game could include an audio based compass similar to Ghost of Tsushima’s wind leading the player towards the correct direction.

  • Even though the game pays attention to vision accessibility and includes a render mode for the three most common types of colorblindness, it lacks a high contrast option that allows players to distinguish the visual elements of the player, the interactables, the enemies or the background. This could be achieved with the use of high contrasting colors or the use of outlines.

Demon Souls (remake)

Hearing accessibility

Negatives

  • Even though the game relies on surprise attacks and the need for world awareness, there is audio anticipation of attacks and traps that allows the player to avoid incoming damage. Nonetheless, and without affecting this game’s pillar, this same audio cue could be accompanied by a visual indicator, either diegetic or non-diegetic. This allows players with or without hearing impairments to be in equal standing.

  • Although subtitles are present, they are not accompanied by closed captions to express environment sounds or dialogue sentiment. This affects the understanding of the narrative, which, in these types of games, is already challenging to follow by design. Additionally, the names of talking characters are not indicated, which worsens the understanding of the storytelling and exploration for those with hearing impairments.

Dead Cells

Motor accessibility

Negatives

  • The Switch has a touch screen, but the game does not make use of this feature to include alternative input methods of touch screen adaptability through on-screen controls and/or gestures to increase the inclusion of differently-abled.

  • The game’s fast pace combat and platforming could be a barrier to players hindered by speed or accuracy related impairments. Without affecting the core of the gameplay itself, and being in line with the game’s existing accessibility concerns regarding combat, platforming accessibility could be improved by the introduction of a game speed adjustment settings (similarly to Celeste).

BONUS RECOMMENDATION

Souls-like games have gained traction over the recent years, known for their ruthless difficulty. However, difficulty does not have to equal lack of accessibility. The core of these games is their complex combat system that many players cannot withstand thus presenting multiple accessibility opportunities:

  • Defensive abilities (parry, block, dodge):

    • Option to adjust game speed for the timing of specific moments should be accounted for, such as, for heavy or unblockable enemy attacks. This feature would not be possible to use in a multiplayer context, which could be tackled by allowing players to only matchmake players with this same accessibility feature.

    • Audio and haptic anticipation cues should be considered to signal precise attack moments.

    • Visual indications should be noticeable for attack types’ identification (e.g. metroidvanias use yellow for parriable and red for unblockable attacks).

  • Offensive abilities:

    • Although manual lock is present, an aim assist or auto-lock to the nearest enemy should be considered to reduce manual strain on constant locking to different enemies, as well as to aid visual identification of enemies.

    • Visual cues with high contrast mode should be made visible as the world is fairly dark and

    • enemies and/or interactables become hard to identify.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Vision accessibility

Positives

  • Players with visual impairments may make use of surround/binaural sound to locate the source of danger, interactive elements, and puzzle completion aid. This game makes use of visual elements to immerse players in an overwhelming environment, this pillar is also achieved using the surround/binaural sound (e.g. furies saying “focus” in proximity of visual representations of puzzle elements and during combat).

  • The game correctly ties visual and audio stimuli, which can become confusing and distracting. By allowing the adjustment of volume ranges of different origins of sound (e.g. master, music, SFX, voices, menus) it enables players to prioritize which audio information they deem more relevant and useful.

Positives

  • The Midnight Mode serves the purpose of equalizing the range of volumes, which is useful to avoid peaks of sounds. Although this option was initially intended for players to play at night with no headphones on, it has been proven useful to reduce hearing fatigue which has been the linked to increased cases of tinnitus in the younger population. This is also enhanced by stereo and mono options, which are useful for players with hearing impairments different in both ears.

  • Haptic feedback is present to indicate interactions from the player with the environment and impacts from their enemies, which allows for awareness of the environment as well as feedback on interactions or combat. This is important for players to have a higher perception of their surroundings, such as, rolling rock traps or dragon flying overhead are signaled by increased haptic feedback by proximity.

Positives

  • Remapping inputs, such as, analog stick dead zone sensitivity range, or assist mode for parry timing, are useful for people afflicted by permanent, temporary or situational motor impairments. It helps to reduce physical strain and effort, and to create more ergonomical handling.

  • Avoid repeated inputs (button-mashing) by allowing to hold button to jump, attack or roll. With this, players with fatigue, pain and speed related impairments are able to fully engage with these locomotion and attack mechanics. Furthermore, the game includes the option to auto-attack, allowing a more comfortable usage of the most frequent mechanic.