Video games are a mass phenomenon and even if accessibility is discussed more and more often, to allow the use of this form of entertainment to the widest possible public, there are still few large productions that are actually usable for those with specific difficulties or disabilities. Yet some options would allow this type of user to have natural access to entertainment.
Making the playful experience accessible does not only mean giving the possibility to play, it instead touches on a fundamental theme for the maturation of the medium: building communities that include, without barriers or preconceptions, anyone who wishes to access them, because videogames today also mean sharing an imaginary, a narrative of the present.
We talked about it with Mila Pavlin, Lead UX Designer at Sony Santa Monica who, with his commendable work on God of War: Ragnarok, it opened the doors to people to whom the video game is still closed today.
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“When we talk about accessibility in video games we want to focus on all those players who could find a obstacle due to some information channel, auditory, visual or tactile, or who may experience difficulty with a particular type of inputlike holding down a button, or tapping the pad repeatedly,” says Mila Pavlin.
Players with some disabilities may need certain ones specific tools, for example those who are hard of hearing or deaf will need subtitles to understand the dialogues present in the game, continues Mila Pavlin: “Players with different histories and backgrounds can benefit from the same game features where one of the aforementioned information channels is limited . I like to take as an example the typical moment when we play at night and don’t want to wake anyone up, so we turn down the volume. Playing this way could benefit everyone by taking advantage of the same features”.
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The assistance parameters that really allow you to customize the gaming experience making it usable to the broadest spectrum of gamers are many, in the title developed by Santa Monica we are talking about more than sixty accessibility features. “To make God of War more accessible, we have focused onadding assists in four big categories and the feedback players gave us when they couldn’t get ahead in the game.” Pavlin continues: “As regards hearingwe knew we had to broadcast more information through visual and tactile cues. We’ve added an effective subtitle system, with customizable sizes, colors and backgrounds. This, combined with the direction indicators, has allowed us to enrich the game world without the use of sound”.
Each problem has a different approach and solution motor actionsthe first blocks to simplify concerned the commands, customizing them in order to reduce the complexity in the inputs. We completely rebuilt the control mapping, added assists to common activities, such as climbing, traversing, picking up objects, blocking and changing aim. We’ve also added a number of options to fine-tune the combat making it easier to press the buttons. All this, together with the puzzle assists and an adaptation of the timing of the game, made the experience much more fluid”.
Per the visual aspect instead, Mila Pavlin’s team focused on navigation assets to lead the player to certain places and on sound signals to indicate interaction with controller buttons for combat actions.
Structuring the user-experience of a production such as God of War Ragnarok to make the game accessible is a titanic job, says Mila Pavlin: “For such an important production it is even more important to establish accessibility goals from the beginning. We set the design parameters during the design phase, and we have polite the working group on the different aspects and problems of accessibility, establishing regular meetings with the team and game tests with the players of the community. Our team has been fantastic in complying with all the requirements in the development phase”.
Working on next-generation consoles gives developers more tools to increase the accessibility of titles. The arrival of the haptic feedback of the PlayStation 5 controller, which transmits different types of vibrations, and the enhancement of 3D audio have greatly enriched the gaming experience and immersiveness. These aspects of innovation, says Mila Pavlin: “They were really impactful in the testing phase”.
For gamers who want to use the accessibility features in God of War Ragnarok, the team has put in some great presets that are available at the start of the game, which can be a good starting point. Pavlin concludes: “The settings that will be changed will turn blue in the menu, so you can distinguish them. We have introduced some accessibility features in the gameplay menuto make them more immediate. I suggest to all players who encounter difficulties or blockages during the gaming experience that they look through the options, they will probably find a setting there that will help them”
Building the accessibility of a video game production such as God of War Ragnarok it’s not an experiment, it should instead mark a direction that all major development studios should pursue in their next blockbusters.