Moving on, Grounded, by Obsidian Games dealt with arachnophobia by giving gamers complete control over the look of spiders in the game. No wonder Eurogamer chose Hades as its GOTY. It’s a simple solution which doesn’t alter gameplay but cleverly uses the constant variable of character death as an accessibility feature. The developer decided to add God Mode, a setting which makes Zagreus more powerful every time he dies. Supergiant also listened to player feedback regarding accessibility improvements. Hades by Supergiant games didn’t just have a beautiful art style, a humorous narrative and engaging combat. This also appeared as auto-drive in Watch Dogs Legion.Īccessibility advances didn’t just come from the blockbuster games but also from small but mighty indie games. The revolutionary accessibility feature in Valhalla was the ability to auto-ride to an objective or follow a mission character, which eliminated the need to control your horse or Viking Longship for prolonged periods with a single press of a button. This game brought me back to loving the Assassin’s Creed franchise. However, I will focus here on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Ubisoft released 3 games with great accessibility features in 2020: Watch Dogs Legion, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Immortals Fenix Rising. These options are energy-saving so gameplay isn’t such a physical effort. Insomniac added toggles for aiming, Venom powers and web-swinging. An example: Web Burst automatically fired 3 webs to stick enemies to the environment instead of needing you to press L1 three times. The remapping allowed you to change button layouts, but it also showed how the remapping would affect actions that require multiple presses. Insomniac fixed all these accessibility issues without dramatically changing the control scheme, but by offering intuitive accessibility settings. The previous game was spectacular, however the controls were difficult to use especially during fast-paced combat. And Miles Morales was also a surprising accessibility triumph. Accessibility isn’t a competition between developers, but a collaborative and supportive endeavour needed for the gaming industry to progress.Įlsewhere! Spider-Man: Miles Morales by Insomniac games had an amazing and emotional narrative with some killer tracks. We must be realistic though as we can’t expect all games to have the same level of accessibility and we can’t compare future games to TLOU2. This feature should be available in all future shooters I found the option to activate slow-motion whilst aiming invaluable, as it meant that I had enough time to be a precise headshot machine. The button remapping was one of the best yet seen as it utilised the PS4 touchpad, which potentially removed the need for stick clicks. Players without sight were able to get the Platinum trophy, which is down to revolutionary accessibility features like high contrast mode, a narrator and multiple audio cues. It also emphatically proved that games with accessibility features can and will sell. Naughty Dog illustrated that consulting with accessibility specialists with various disabilities throughout development is indeed possible and worthwhile. The Last Of Us Part 2 was an utterly ground-breaking game on multiple levels: it solidified the foundation for accessibility whilst raising the bar for future game developers to build upon. 2020 was undoubtedly the greatest year for the gaming accessibility community since the release of the Xbox Adaptive Controller in 2018. Let me take you on an investigative journey backwards through 2020 using my trusty game accessibility magnifier lens.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |