By The very first episode of Access-Ability, back before this was a weekly recurring segment with its own series name, was published three years ago, in January of 2020, and since then a lot has changed for the better with regards to accessibility in the video game industry. While there’s still
Game of the Year Accessibility Awards
So, another year is now over, and with the new video game releases basically finished until 2023, we here at Access-Ability thought that we should get with the times, and organise our own accessibility focused Game of the Year Accessibility Awards show. While this year’s awards will be focused largely
Why don’t we talk more about cognitive accessibility? – Eurogamer
https://www.eurogamer.net/why-dont-we-talk-more-about-cognitive-accessibility I was recently interviewed by Eurogamer as part of this article about cognative accessibility and video games. As someone whose disabilities often impact memory and mental processing, a lot of the accessibility tools I value are often not thought of as acessibility tools at all.
How Wayward Strand V1.0.1 Became “The Laura Update”
I was not a formal accessibility consultant on Wayward Strand, but I was still able to help improve the game’s accessibility settings all the same. In Wayward Strand, an indie game which just released at the time of posting this article, players take on the role of a 14 year
Gaming and Aging: How Accessibility Impacts Everyone Eventually
Often, when I publish episodes of Access-Ability, I’ll get someone either in the YouTube comments, or on Twitter, responding to the episode by saying something like “this is really interesting, but doesn’t affect me personally”. That’s not necessarily surprising, but I think it overlooks the fact that for many people, your current level of gaming ability will not last forever, and accessibility support that doesn’t impact you today may in the future.
Video Games Need Accessibility Standards
While the overall industry has been making positive strides forward in terms of more games becoming more accessible, as an industry we can’t so much as guarantee a game will definitely feature accurate subtitling for deaf and hard of hearing players, let alone any consistent application of more intensive accessibility support.
Why the PS5 Access Controller Needs to Work on PS6
Back in January of this year, Sony announced that they were developing a modular accessibility controller for the PlayStation 5, at the time codenamed Project Leonardo. The controller, which consists of a circular ring of customisable buttons and an adapted analogue stick, with inputs for external 3.5mm accessibility peripherals, was
Project Gameface Enables Mouse Control Using Facial Gestures
During last week’s 2023 Google I/O event, an annual conference where the company’s developers showcase new tech developments, it was revealed that Google has been working on a piece of software called Project Gameface, a program designed to enable mouse control using face gestures, requiring nothing but a standard webcam
Why developers are designing video games for accessibility – PBS News Hour
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/why-developers-are-designing-video-games-for-accessibility In this recent interview with PBS NewsHour, I spoke to the interviewer about the current surge in mainstream attention given to gaming accessibility.
Tears of the Kingdom Accessibility Review
This accessibility review for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will attempt to avoid spoilers wherever possible. There may be some minor mention of locations or mechanics, but only where necessary to discuss an aspect of accessibility in the title. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Forza Motorsport Introduces Ambitious Blind Driving Assists
Over the last three or so years, one of the areas of game design that has seen the most ambitious steps forward taken in accessibility is gameplay assists for blind players. From The Last of Us 2 introducing audio cues to allow for sightless players to navigate stealth and combat
A (Non-Optimistic) Tears of the Kingdom Accessibility Wishlist
As a long time fan of the Legend of Zelda series, it’s fair to say that I am incredibly excited about the upcoming release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the sequel to the Nintendo Switch launch title Breath of the Wild. While Breath of the Wild
Access-Ability Summer Showcase Announcement
On June 9th 2023 at 4pm UK, 11am Eastern, 8am Pacific, the first annual Access-Ability Summer Showcase will be aired live, showcasing recently released and upcoming video games made by disabled game developers, and featuring accessibility settings designed to help ensure more disabled gamers are able to play. What To
PS5’s Accessibility Tags Are Great, With a Caveat
Thanks to a PS5 system update released toward the end of last week, we’ve now moved one step closer to video game storefront accessibility tags becoming an industry standard. Back in November of 2021, Xbox introduced a series of Accessibility Tags that appear when browsing games on the Xbox digital
Pokémon Go is Rolling Back Remote Raiding… Again
Back when Pokémon Go originally released in the summer of 2016, the game’s core identity was built around the fact that its gameplay required players to walk around in the real world, ideally, in busy towns and cities, to find the real world locations that Pokemon were hiding in, as
Resident Evil 4 Remake Accessibility Review
Released toward the end of last week, Resident Evil 4 Remake is a fairly faithful modernisation of what is largely considered one of the greatest video games of its originally released console generation. Blending third person shooting horror, and campy humour, the game marked a distinct turning point for the
