[Saka]

On the Global Accessibility Awareness Day Blizzard published a blog post explaining the accessibility options available in the upcoming Diablo 4 game. The possibilities include button remapping, button toggle replacing holding, remapping controller sticks, target locking, customizable subtitles, speech to text, audio cues to assist low vision, resizable cursor and font, objective highlighting and finally support for screen readers. It's great to see that they are working to improve the accessibility of their games and expanding the potential playerbase to include people who were previously left out due to barriers.

On June 6, a new plane of Hell will open, giving way to endless hours of demon-slaying fun in Diablo IV. The team saw this as an opportunity to improve the accessibility offerings within the game, and they took careful steps to ensure that every new feature added would break down barriers that kept players from playing—a flame that guided them all through development.

“The only limitation to adventuring in Sanctuary should be interest, not capability,” said lead accessibility designer Drew McCrory when the team began ideating on the game’s potential accessibility features. Starting with the bedrock laid forth in Diablo II: Resurrected, the team began to construct accessibility features that struck a balance between being useful for players with disabilities while being careful not to mar gameplay for others. From there, the team continued to smooth out the rough edges of the features in their incubation tank until they provided additional usability without altering the core gameplay loop. What they were left with were accessibility options that empower as many players as possible.

Diablo IV hosts over 50 individual accessibility features, with some aids to dexterity, reading text, and vision highlighted below. Once you get your hands on the game, we urge you to navigate to the Settings menu and tinker with each option until the experience suits your individual needs.


The post ends with a hint that additional features might come in the future and players are encouraged to report accessibility issues in the game to the accessibility team.

[GoLLuM13]

I love that “The only limitation to adventuring in Sanctuary should be interest, not capability,” I always use captions, whether in English or French when available and I also use "audio cues" in the form of icons with arrows to know where the sound comes from it's not cheating (like someone told me once) it's just that sometimes audio engines are buggy you hear the sound from left behind when it's downstairs on the right 👀
And I really like when they give the option for toggle/hold and remap, I know people (in my family) who can't hold a button and can't have access to some buttons too due to motor limitation after a surgery.

I see that other options are coming, let's hope they don't forget about color blindness too.

[Saka]

@GoLLuM13 Actually options reducing repetitive presses/holding can be helpful for quite a lot of people. Carpal tunnel syndrome or repetitive strain injury are quite common among players.

I got carpal tunnel syndrome some years ago, had to radically change how I played games and limit my gaming time as well during the recovery. Luckily, my wrist managed to get better without surgery, but there's some weakness remaining in it. I don't have much grip strength and always resort to using spoons or rubber gloves for opening jars. Push-ups also make my wrists feel funny.

Such is the charm of life, you get dents and cracks in your body all the time. At least that one injury is not affecting my daily life much. There should be more awareness about the issues caused by bad ergonomics when playing though. It's not just "old people" who get hurt, as that happened to me when I was just barely past 20. 😅

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka The whole Diablo series passed me by, isometric games are not really my thing (unless turn-based tactical), so it is hard for me to fully appreciate all the improvements compared to how the game was before. But it is inspiring to see the sheer number of improvements made, 50 is impressive.

Interesting you mention carpal tunnel syndrome, a sort of potential occupational hazard for gamers. Perhaps hardware designers need to think not only about how accessible their products are but also about how likely they could cause damage like that. More so when combined with people using smartphones at the scale they do currently.

And there really should be more awareness about the issues caused by bad ergonomics when playing, you're right. When I was buying a chair and a table, I had to search the internet a lot to find advice about height and angles and all that, and even now I am not sure my setup is "the healthiest". Maybe we should start a thread with advice about a good setup to share those.

[Saka]

Originally Posted by DoctorEldritch

Interesting you mention carpal tunnel syndrome, a sort of potential occupational hazard for gamers. Perhaps hardware designers need to think not only about how accessible their products are but also about how likely they could cause damage like that. More so when combined with people using smartphones at the scale they do currently.

@DoctorEldritch From my experience and trying my spouse's equipment... It's also that anatomy matters and a keyboard or mouse just can't accommodate everyone. Clearly, this needs more attention and people be made aware of it.

The keyboard that caused me carpal tunnel is still in use by my mother. She has no issues with it despite writing quite a lot of text on it. She really likes the brown switches. I figured out that for me a wrist rest is mandatory, as well as watching the profile of the keyboard.

Mice have also been a bit problematic for me.

We could make a topic about ergonomics, there's a lot of things people don't pay attention to until they suffer from injuries.