The Last Of Us Part 2 is set to be one of the last great games for the PlayStation 4. After this, developers like Naughty Dog will be working on games for the PlayStation 5, with the current console generation being slowly left behind. While the game isn’t out yet, and many reviewers can only post their initial impressions of it up to a certain point, Naughty Dog has spoken out about the accessibility features in the game.
In an interview with The Verge, the developer went into detail about just what they wanted to do with accessibility in their game. As I’ve already pointed out, this is going to be a very popular game, and a lot of people are going to want to play it. As such, Naughty Dog wanted to enable as many people as possible to play it, regardless of how well they can play games. As a result, there are over 60 different accessibility options in The Last Of Us Part 2.
Accessibility options in a game can range from a collection of colourblind modes, to an entirely new game mode built for blind players. Developers talk to differently abled gamers all the time to figure out how they can make their games easier for more people to play. With players who are blind for example, you can have the game’s protagonist automatically turn to face the right direction, run in that direction, or just have them lock onto a waypoint for players to run towards. Text-to-speech for menus is also extremely important, but there are other options that will help more.
Unfortunately we can’t find any images or videos that we’re able to include here, but you can imagine this next part. The Last Of Us Part 2 is an incredible well-realised world. It’s possibly one of the most detailed in gaming history. However, this doesn’t necessarily make it easier for people to see what’s going on. That’s why there’s a sort of heat map mode, which colours friendly characters in one colour, enemies in another, and items in yet another. This makes the game extremely easy to see for those who can’t pick up details very well.
I’m astonished that there’s so much to just the accessibility features of The Last Of Us Part 2. They’re really quite impressive when you delve into them, and that’s without taking into account just how detailed the world is all by itself. When the game finally launches, it may prove to be popular with differently abled gamers just because it’s more accessible, and that’s never a bad thing.
