Consoles Need to Add Native Voice Command Support For Games

Before we begin, I want to mention that the inspiration for this video came from a Micro Talk titled “Say “Yes” to Start: How Custom Voice Commands Effect Gameplay”, which was given a few weeks ago by Viktor, also known as @VoicedGaming.Bsky.Social, at the Game Accessibility Gathering at Unity Brighton. 

Please go give Viktor a follow on social media if this topic is of interest to you. This is someone with a lot of experience that is going to be very relevant to this topic.

While that talk is not yet available to watch online I believe that the plan is for it to be uploaded, and I highly recommend watching it once it’s up, as it includes a lot of really interesting insight into an aspect of accessible gaming that I don’t have a lot of lived experience with. In particular, the talk’s discussion of why it’s challenging to use voice commands in games on modern consoles was what prompted me to work on this video script.

Let’s start by talking a little about the basics of voice commands in video games, and why they’re generally useful as a gaming accessibility feature.

Voice commands, when set up for video games, can allow players to use their voice to activate in game actions and commands. Useful for players with coordination disabilities, limb differences, chronic pain, temporary injuries, and complex physical support needs, voice command support allows players to set up custom commands to do anything in a video game, ranging from walking a set distance in a specified direction, to activating strings of button inputs, or moving their mouse to a specific region of their screen.

While some disabled gamers use voice commands as an additional option that they incorporate into a traditional control scheme, others play games using 100% voice inputs for all in-game actions.

Voice Commands aren’t a naturally good fit for playing every single kind of video game, but they can open up a lot of genres of games to be more playable to a wide range of disabled players. 

Because there’s an inherent time delay in the player stating a voice command out loud, their PC recognising that voice command, and then the execution of the game input, voice commands tend to work best for games where the player doesn’t have to respond instantly with tight response windows. 

While they may not be a perfect fit for a game like Elden Ring, voice commands tend to work very well for games like JRPGs for example, or other turn based games. This isn’t to say that fast paced or reaction based games can’t be played using fully voice input controls, but doing so tends to come with additional cognitive load for players, who have to account for the fact there’s a short delay before their input is reflected on screen.

Basically, they’re playing with a built in lag delay, and that can be kind of tricky.

Right now, most people who game using primarily voice commands do so when gaming on PC, because that’s where the most robust tools for voice commands exist. Some disabled gamers make use of voice commands on consoles, but the way that they’re able to do so puts their access to console games at risk, in ways that I hope will eventually be addressed by console manufacturers.

Some modern game consoles (the PS5 and Xbox Series, but not the Switch 2) do support some basic voice commands, but only for system menu navigation and not for in-game command inputs.

On the PlayStation 5 for example you can go to Settings, Voice Command, and Enable Voice Command. This allows you to turn on an AI voice detection system which will interpret commands given, and attempt to execute them on the PS5 system UI. There’s no set list of commands given by PlayStation, but you couldin theory, for example, ask your PS5 to take you to the PlayStation Store page for an upcoming game release, and the system should in theory navigate to that screen on your behalf.

For Xbox Series console owners, if you own a Google Assistant or Alexa device and pair that to your console, you can then issue voice commands which can be used to similarly navigate your Xbox’s system UI. Commands laid out by Xbox that you can give include turning your Xbox on or off, taking a screenshot or recording gameplay footage, loading a specific game or app, and muting your volume.

Importantly, neither console allows for voice commands to translate into control inputs when a game is running, the way that many disabled gamers make use of voice commands to play their games.

If you want to issue voice commands to activate in-game controls on a modern game console, the only way to do so is using a device like the Titan Two. 

The Titan Two is a multi-purpose USB device – It allows for using controllers on consoles that they weren’t designed for (which is useful for accessibility controller support), it allows for using Mouse and Keyboard input on consoles, and it allows for connecting PC voice command software to a console, so that console games can be voice input controlled.

I’ll include a link below to a video by accessible gaming charity Special Effect, demonstrating how to set up voice commands to function in a console game, using the Titan Two.

The issue is, the Titan Two is best known as a device that allows for cheating in competitive online First Person Shooters. As a result, both Xbox and PlayStation are engaged in an ongoing war of attrition with the device’s creators. Frequently the Titan Two ceases to function on consoles, before having its functionality restored by a firmware update. As such, players relying on the Titan Two for console voice command support can’t rely on that support being consistently available. This is the point that was raised by Viktor during the Game Accessibility Gathering talk that he gave, and was the catalyst for working on this video.

I’m not criticising PlayStation or Xbox necessarilly for blocking access to the Titan Two, I understand the pressure that both companies face to keep cheaters out of their online games, but the impact that this has on disabled gamers who use the device for accessibility support is undeniable

Now, there is an interesting historical example of games consoles which did support voice commands for in game actions, both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. 

Initially released for the Xbox 360 as an optional peripheral, then bundled in with Xbox One consoles at launch, the Kinect was a camera and microphone combo designed primarily as a motion tracking camera, aiming to compete with the Nintendo Wii. While it allowed for using motion controls to interact with on screen video games, it was also marketed as a way for players to control their games using their voice.

During the Xbox Kinect era, a number of first and third party video games were released featuring support for in game voice commands. In Forza Horizon 2 for example you could ask an in-game assistant to set your Sat Nav route to show you a route to the nearest Garage, and that would automatically happen for you. In Mass Effect 3 you could say the name of a squad member and the name of one of their special abilities, and they would activate that attack without you needing to pull up the ability wheel. In Dragon Age Inquisition players could reposition their party members, target enemies, and activate healing spells using voice commands. In Battlefield 4 you could set the game to automatically spawn you as a specific character class on your next respawn. 

Now, this era of console voice commands wasn’t perfect, but it served as a pretty decent proof of concept that voice commands on consoles are something we could be offering to players. 

To acknowledge the shortcomings of the Kinect era, games generally only offered a small number of voice commands, designed to augment traditional controls rather than robustly function as a stand alone control scheme option. These games generally didn’t let you set your own custom voice commands, nor did they let you train their system to recognise your voice specifically for increased accuracy. These commands were pretty limited, and didn’t allow for activation of things like macros, or broad general gameplay functionality.

However, despite its flaws, this was an era where game developers were being actively encouraged to consider adding voice commands to their games, and allowing in-game functionality to be controlled via voice input. I believe we should push for a return to that kind of thinking, and ask console manufacturers and game developers to consider adding voice command support to their video games as an accessibility feature.

There are some limitations that would inherently make broad, full game voice command support tricky to offer on a console or game specific level. You’d need to support custom word support, so that players with speech limitations or memory conditions could select accessible word choices that they can comfortably remember and execute. You’d need to either have very robust voice detection, or allow for custom voice training, so that aspects such as pronunciation, accent, and speech volume aren’t barriers to words being recognised by the game. And you’d need to be comfortable with gamers creating their own button input macros, so that a player could for example say “Forward 8” rather than saying the word “Forward” 8 separate times. These are hurdles which would need to be overcome, and are perhaps in some conflict with how console manufacturers and developers are currently thinking about input support offered in console games, but I don’t think these are insurmountable hurdles to overcome.

Interestingly of note, if the rumours are true about the next generation Xbox console being closer in open functionality to a Windows PC, this kind of native voice command support may end up being an option that’s open to players. Additionally, while I haven’t had a chance to test this, I am curious to see if this kind of support functionality is possible to set up on the recently released Steam Machine, given that that is essentially a Linux machine.

In a world where the Titan Two is undeniably going to be banned repeatedly on consoles, there needs to be an alternative way for disabled gamers to access voice based command inputs on consoles. If console manufacturers could create a device that allows voice input but doesn’t facilitate cheating in FPS games that would be great, but it still wouldn’t be ideal to need a PC as part of a console voice activated gaming setup. In a perfect world, I would love to see console manufacturers consider bringing back console voice commands, in a more expanded fashion, as a future accessibility innovation.