User accessibility is a big topic in gaming right now, as more and more disabled gamers are speaking out about their desire to enjoy great video games just like everybody else. Thankfully, a lot of companies and games are making an effort to open the doors to more players, with the upcoming Watch Dogs: Legion being the latest game to announce expanded accessibility options.
As one of the most anticipated games of fall 2020 for many, Ubisoft's Watch Dogs: Legion is getting a good amount of speculation and buzz online. Ubisoft, as a hugely popular video game company, has a lot of eyes on it and a lot of people wanting to play its games. It clearly wants to use that publicity to promote accessibility to, in its own words, "remove potential obstacles" for the host of players to love Ubisoft games.
Ubisoft published a dialogue with associate producer Mihai Alexandru Nuta on the process behind implementing some of these features. Watch Dogs: Legion will reportedly feature "fully customizable controls" as well as audio captioning for the hearing impaired. Of course, anyone can use any of the customization options regardless of whether they have a disability, as the whole point of accessibility is to offer choices to improve the gameplay experience.
According to Nuta, Ubisoft's dedication to accessibility options started with Watch Dogs 2, when it added a customizable controls page among other things. Ubisoft started focusing on making everything from the HUD to menus "scalable" with input from Far Cry, Ghost Recon, and Assassin's Creed devs. Other major options include aim-assist and aim lock-on customization, a Ping feature, auto-drive, the option to limit screen shake, colorblind and contrast presets, menu narration, audio captions, volume sliders, and in-game tutorials.
The team considered multiple types of disabilities and impairments, including attention to cognitive disabilities that led to the team implementing a hints option with puzzles. Nuta commented that one of Ubisoft's priorities is to make every accessibility feature usable when and if players want to use them, and that it isn't just disabled people who might benefit from these options. The first Watch Dogs: Legion demo with accessibility features premiered at Ubisoft Forward, which gave the devs plenty of useful feedback that they're working on implementing into more polished versions of the game.
Nuta points out that any form of game customization promotes game longevity and player investment. Watch Dogs: Legion boasts a lot of new content and features, and if it's as popular as its predecessors then there are sure to be many players who need and appreciate these accessibility options.
Watch Dogs: Legion is currently in development for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One. PS5 and Xbox Series X versions will be released sometime in the future.
Source: Ubisoft