There are more than 400 million gamers globally who consider themselves disabled and the developers behind Forza Horizon 5 made accessibility one of the key focuses right from the start. Beginning March 1, 2022, American and British Sign Languages will arrive as options to the popular game for its in-game cinematics. The update will include actors from the deaf and hard of hearing community signing in parts of the story.
Avid gamer Cameron Akitt, who grew up hard of hearing, and also has friends who are deaf, found gaming with subtitles fatigueing. He explains in the company's news release, with on-screen people signing doesn't just create a more inclusive environment but also offers a different dynamic in the gaming experience.
Gaming played a big part in getting through a traumatic injury for Tara Voelker, who leads accessibility for Xbox Game Studios. She was 10 when she was hit by a car as she was walking home from school and had an extensive recovery period. During that time of recovery, gaming was one thing she could still do with her friends.
According to Microsoft's news release, Voelker led an inclusive workshop at Playgroud Games a few years ago, which had committed early in the development of Forza Horizon 5 to get feedback from deaf and hard of hearing individuals – and tapped into her network of people in the disability community in the U.K. She contacted Akitt and other subject matter experts and brought them together in the same room as the developers working on the game. “It set the tone for the entire product going forward,” says Voelker, whose background includes game development, including BioShock Infinite. “They baked it into the development process.”
Over the two days, the developers learned from people within the disability community, rotating into rooms where people shared their experiences with games and what was preventing them from having the same experience as peers without disabilities.
“We got to talk to them and understand what it is that they struggled with in-game,” says Tarnya Smith, a producer at Playground Games for Forza Horizon 5. “For me it was quite an eye opener. We learned that although we think subtitles are great and help everyone, they actually aren’t that helpful for people who are deaf or hard of hearing who rely on signing. It was a big wake up call for us.”
Playground Games made a decision at that point to make accessibility a key pillar of the game, which won the Innovation in Accessibility award at The Game Awards 2021, as well two Can I Play That? Accessibility Awards the same year.
“And we realized that there’s an opportunity to help people enjoy our games more by adding this feature,” says Mike Brown, creative director of Forza Horizon 5. “These are the key parts of the game that need to be preserved and protected.”
The team also understood the deeper need for these accessibility features.
“Games demand things of you in order to experience them. And when you do that, then there are going to be players who find different things, different levels of challenge,” Brown says. “I think we are going to keep pushing and keep solving those problems for people for a very, very long time. The complexity the games have, which is their strength, is also bringing with it a whole load of challenges that we as creators need to find a way to solve.”
For Playground Games, the focus on accessibility prompted a whole new process of getting it all into the game and then testing to make sure it’s actually working correctly. The studio constantly consulted with the deaf and hard of hearing community, such as Akitt, who they invited back to play the game and gauge his reaction.
“It really sets a precedent; it sets a bar. It’s very much like new territory because if a company like Playground can do this, why can’t other big studios go to the same lengths?” Akitt says. “It’ll be interesting to see what comes. Will there be a standardizing format, will other studios emulate? And what opportunities could there be for the deaf and hard of hearing community?”
Read the full news here.