When The Last of Us Part II – the sequel to Naughty Dog’s hugely popular apocalyptic game – landed in 2020, it was heralded as a watershed moment for gaming. Not only because of its gripping storyline and best-in-class character and environment design, but because it was a triple AAA title offering an unprecedented number of accessibility features, around 60 in total.

Its legacy goes beyond the game itself by setting a benchmark for more and more developers to live up to, according to games critic and accessibility consultant Laura Dale. “In the past four years in particular, since The Last of Us Part II made discussions of accessibility mainstream and showed that innovation in the space might garner positive PR and critical acclaim, there has been a notable uptick in developers actively listening to audiences about accessibility.”

Dale says it’s being taken more seriously industry-wide, with studios engaging focus groups and consultants far earlier in development stage. (Naughty Dog worked with seven consultants on The Last of Us Part II.) “I can personally attest that, as the past four years have passed, I’ve found a dramatic increase in the amount of work I get offered speaking directly with developers about accessibility in their titles.”

It has been a long road to get here, and the journey isn’t over, either. Having a wide range of well-designed accessibility features can dictate how people play games (autonomously versus having assistance from another person); what they play (with some people feeling unwelcomed in online competitive or team games); and whether they play at all. Many of the gamers who took part in a 2022 report by RNIB – a charity that supports people with sight loss – said they played games less than they would like, or had stopped playing games altogether, as a result of poor accessibility.

The report was the first in its Design for Every Gamer initiative, which aims to improve gaming accessibility for people with sight loss. Through the initiative, RNIB has had a positive influence on several games titles according to Lorna Forbes, head of brand engagement at RNIB. The organisation also held a 2022 symposium with Abertay University in Dundee, which was attended by developers. “The event revealed to us that there are lots of gaming studios that are really, really keen to make accessible games for blind and partially sighted people, but there is a real appetite for additional guidance and support.”

The Twitch livestream that RNIB set up to launch Design for Every Gamer illustrated how important individual people with lived experiences have been in driving forward the conversation so far. “Everyone should have the right to game, so we brought on board well-known gamers both sighted and non-sighted for a live play off to open up the conversation about making games accessible and capture the attention of the gaming community, gaming companies and developers.”

The Twitch stream also connected the organisation to a wider community of blind and partially sighted gamers, who are part of a panel engaging in an ongoing dialogue with RNIB. The organisation is now currently working on creating a developer’s toolkit for the industry that it is hoping to launch this year.

The current environment where a disabled player needs to purchase multiple different accessibility controllers if they want to game across different consoles is not ideal

Big organisations such as RNIB or Cerebral Palsy Foundation, which has similarly influenced games companies, can leverage a lot of power to shape the future of accessible gaming. However, much of the work has been spurred on by a passionate and vocal community of gamers, influencers, and content creators who have dedicated time to reporting on accessibility developments (or lack thereof). Dale’s YouTube and website reviews at Access Ability, as well as sites like Can I Play That? provide the in-depth analysis of accessibility features and news that can be overlooked by other larger games media platforms.

Of the three leading console companies, Dale places Xbox ahead of the pack, noting how it “led the charge on hardware and controller option accessibility several years back” with its Adaptive Controller and Co-Pilot Mode.

She believes that PlayStation’s strength lies in its software capabilities, enabling success stories like The Last of Us Part II, and notes that it is “one of the only major publishers trying to introduce cinematic audio descriptions to large scale 3D action games”. In the hardware department, she believes the brand has learned from Xbox’s innovations in the years since, including the 2023 launch of its own adaptive controller.

Yet both are prone to making misfires. While the release of official accessibility controllers marks a step forward in some ways, it has given companies licence to ban more affordable third-party options. “Disabled people are, statistically, likely to have less disposable income available to them, and the current environment where a disabled player needs to purchase multiple different accessibility controllers if they want to game across different consoles is not ideal,” Dale says.

The ban on third-party peripherals is part of a wider effort to crack down on cheat tools, and isn’t necessarily a new issue, she says. “There are stories dating back to the early 2000s of PC gamers finding their accessible input devices rendered unusable due to anti cheat software in specific titles.” But the people most affected are often not the target. “The big issue is that this is an arms race with escalating unintended casualties; cheating device manufacturers constantly pour money into working out how to evade third party device bans, often getting their devices functional again within weeks of a system update, but leaving legitimate third party devices without the same profit incentives unavailable for use.”

Dale believes that at least enabling cross-platform use of controllers would alleviate some of the burden on gamers. “I know a lot of disabled gamers who use devices intended for cheating in order to use a specific accessibility controller on a competitor’s machine, such as someone using an Xbox Adaptive Controller on PS5 because it has a larger number of 3.5mm input ports or is better suited to foot based inputs. Even if these companies are going to shut off third party controllers, supporting each other’s first party controllers could do a lot to help offer disabled players choice and variety.”

There are few feelings more frustrating as a disabled gamer than getting excited about a game, only to realise maybe only on launch day that it’s going to be unplayable for you

While console capabilities are a crucial component, Forbes says that the software is what tends to come up with RNIB’s panel of gamers. Dale believes that Nintendo is “demonstrably lagging behind” by failing to offer “even the most basic accessibility settings”. “They understand the importance of helping broad market segments play games, in particular their push into touch and motion gaming was explicitly to make games more approachable for younger and older gamers with limited existing game experience, but that kind of thinking needs to be extended to disabled players too.”

She points out that Nintendo also has a history of failing to communicate information ahead of release, despite far smaller companies – she highlights indie publisher Whitethorn Games – managing to do this. It gets to the heart of another big issue: the gaming experience is broader than playing the game itself. It isn’t just about hardware and software, but about customer experience (CX), involving everything from brand communications to UX.

“There are few feelings more frustrating as a disabled gamer than getting excited about a cool looking game, only to realise months later, maybe only on launch day, that it’s going to be unplayable for you, and that you have to let go of that built up excitement for a cool new release,” Dale says.

“If you’re a developer whose game isn’t going to be accessible, be it out of not thinking about accessibility until too late in development, lacking budget to fund certain accessibility features, uncertainty about how to overcome a novel hurdle, a game design fundamentally tied to a particular sense, or even just a disinterest in accessibility generally, the least you can do for disabled players is let us know early what you’re doing.” Dale says that this goes for bad news too: “Even if you later have to revert course on an announced feature, be transparent.”

In fact, it’s even more important in “games that are going to fall short”, she believes. “Some games are just not going to be accessible for everyone, that’s somewhat inevitable. Even the most accessible video game in the world is likely to have someone with a combination of disabilities that make them unable to play. The end goal should ideally be to support as many players as possible, but if you’re not going to do that, I honestly believe the next best thing you can do is be transparent about that.”

Transparency is one of the reasons why Dale praises Ubisoft, which she says has spent years quietly making impactful changes within the games, and making “disabled players aware of them early on in development, via accessible means”. She points to Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown as an example of these efforts coming together in one place. The game’s many new accessibility features – such as support for high contrast mode and cognitive features – were announced the same day as the game itself was, “alongside a Summer Games Fest showcase presented to players with sign language and audio description adapted versions available”.

The knowledge is there, we have the tools, but they are spread across companies and not consistently applied

Herein lies another consideration that may be overlooked. Any strides that are being made in game design or the communications around it should be mirrored in event experiences too. Dale praises Xbox’s accessible booth spaces at conventions, “ensuring that there are no areas of booths inaccessible for disabled attendees, offering quiet spaces for autistic visitors on show floor spaces, and ensuring sign language interpreters and accessibility controllers are available upon request”. This goes for online events experiences too. Ben Bayliss at Can I Play That? highlighted in 2021 that while that year’s Game Awards had accessible ways to watch, they weren’t advertised – so few people could actually use them.

With more and more success stories making gaming accessible for everyone, where does the industry go from here? “The next big step the video game industry needs to take is, in my opinion, standardisation,” Dale says. “We’re fast approaching the point where, generally speaking, we know how to make a pretty wide variety of game genres accessible to a pretty wide range of disabled gamers.

“The knowledge is there, we have the tools, but they are spread across companies and not consistently applied. Whether through formal standardisation by something like a ratings board, or more casual industry pressure and shifting expectations, we need these tools and design concepts to become expected, rather than positive surprises.”

@laurakbuzz; rnib.org.uk; Top image: Shutterstock/Kaleb-Silva