"It's a true frontier of game design": How Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games think about accessibility

Challenge and accessibility can coexist in harmony with the right design choices.

[Rocosaurus]

Great to see accessibility being taken seriously by more and more developers. Many gamers are getting up there in terms of age, with everthing that it entails.

[Snookies12]

Still blown away by Last of Us 2's accessibility options, honestly. Really awesome of them to make the game easily playable to such a wide range of people.

[Magog]

I'm glad they helping out this 5% of gamers but true frontier is a bit much. The true frontier is higher quality AI, branching narrative, VR, etc.

[DarXyde]

I disagree.

It applies to a small minority of people, but you disregard the larger impact of accessibility: reaching new audiences. People often give Nintendo grief for the Wii, but it was a genius design that broke into a new market and was arguably one of—if not, the most—accessible console of all time. Microsoft has continued this tradition with great accessibility options for their controllers. From a hardware perspective, they have really done great work. Now, with Insomniac and Naughty Dog, accessibility is being very thoughtfully and meticulously applied to software.

To say that's not a true frontier, I honestly disagree. It is actually expanding the industry. Higher quality AI is great, but it is a natural technology progression people expect and look for. Branching narrative is great, but for games where narrative is essential to the experience. VR is a true frontier and I agree. It really depends on how it is applied.

A true frontier, in my view, is something that captures more of an audience and brings more people into the fold. I think VR and accessibility do that. Accessibility however is unique in that it has the power to make everything that exists now accessible to everyone, including those who couldn't before.

You're welcome to your view, and that's fair enough. I just think it's a bit short-sighted.

[Stopac]

Its more than just a little short sighted it doesn't make sense. Aspects of game AI, narrative, VR, and so forth have always been a core component in game development or something done to a much higher degree than that of accessibility. How many controllers do you see geared towards special needs gamers being sold in major electronic retailers VS a VR headset?

[S2Killinit]

That is awesome. I think its nice to see something responsible from people. It gives one hope for the future.

[Retroman]

Naughty dog and Insomniac should make Jak and Daxter together.

[SonyStyled]

It’s a crime nobody has made one

[Gamer79]

It would also help if they could get Sony to release a more accessible controller like the one on xbox.

[Ausbo]

Pretty sure you can use the accessibility controller with anything.

I think I remember seeing someone using it with switch.

Sony doesn’t need to make one.

[SonyStyled]

Back in the ps3 era Splitfish was making a bunch of controllers for accessibility. Don’t know if they are still around but they sponsored my KZ2 team

[Emme]

And here Is thought this was about inclusion of hearing or visually impaired or otherwise handicapped gamers 🙄

[YourMommySpoils]

Ziggurat Interactive nneds to learn from them.