The gaming industry has taken more and more strides towards making games more accessible for all players in recent years. To further help this push for accessibility and inclusivity, PlayStation has announced they will be rolling out accessibility tags this week globally on the PlayStation store on PS5 consoles.
No two people, or gamers, are alike and have very different levels of needs that need to be met. As such, these accessibility tags will allow for people to search for games with accessible features that suit said needs.
PlayStation explained the Accessibility Tags as a way to allow game developers to provide a detailed insight into the accessibility features that are in their games.
From this week, when you scroll through different game hubs on the PS5 PlayStation Store, you will see a list of accessibility features by pressing the ‘Triangle’ button, according to PlayStation. These accessibility tags can vary from visual and audio settings to DualSense controller options.
There will also be accessibility options for difficulty settings and online communication features like chat transcription.
Honestly, these accessibility tags are a pretty impressive feature and one that I’m shocked didn’t already exist on PlayStation. It’s going to help a lot of players feel more included in gaming knowing that developers have added features so they too can join in on the experience.
It also just makes sense from all angles. Some features in games are too much for me that might not be enough or be perfect for other players and vice versa. Gaming should be an individual experience so it’s cool to see the software allowing for those needs to be met.
There will be more than 50 Accessibility Tags available for developers to choose from and add to their list from across six categories.
Here are the categories and some of the accessibility tags available on PlayStation:
- Visual: clear text, large text, colour alternatives, audio cues and directional audio indicators
- Audio: volume controls, mono audio, screen reader and visual cue alternatives
- Subtitle and caption: subtitle size, clear captions and large captions
- Control: button remapping, thumbstick sensitivity, ability to play without button holds, rapid button presses or motion control
- Gameplay: difficulty settings, skippable puzzles, simplified quick-time events and game speed
- Online communication: text or voice chat transcription and ping communication
It seems like there is quite a diverse range of tags and options available. It will be interesting to see how accessible/inaccessible some games are.
PlayStation said that the accessibility tags will be gradually released for players this week. However, a handful of games will support the tags at launch.
These games are Days Gone, Death Stranding Director’s Cut, Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut, God Of War, God of War Ragnarök, Gran Turismo 7, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Returnal.
PlayStation also said that these accessibility tags are just the ‘latest step in our journey to make gaming more accessible’. PlayStation also has an upcoming product, Project Leonardo, which is a highly customisable accessibility controller kit.
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