Crackdown 3: Menu Accessibility In A Commercial Game
With all the hype and interest surrounding The Division 2's private beta, I wondered what the first full game would be to get to a similar level. In fact, said game has launched worldwide and it's Crackdown 3.
It's also a step forward because Crackdown 3 (CD3 hereafter) is actually the first commercially available game (within campaign at least) to use Microsoft Speech Synthesis API (MSSA) as unveiled at GDC2017 to provide spoken menus.
This post won't go into the accessibility details of the gameplay experience, though suffice it to say that the campaign isn't playable without sighted assistance and the multiplayer whilst enjoyable without sight in a solo capacity will likely be more interesting with co-op partners. Anyway, back to the menus.
Now there is a caveat at present in the sense that you have to set your Xbox One to English US language Region and location settings. However, once done, enabling the Let Games Read To Me checkbox (settings>ease of access>game transcription) will give you access to spoken menus without issue.
Having played the game before launch, I can say that during my testing there were in-game elements that read as well but they only partially did so. I'll provide updates here as to what reads and what doesn't if I play more of the game, but the main menu, sub menus and options menu read, though there is currently data missing (like time last played for worlds/agents before loading in, or control mapping).
The PC version is a slightly different case in that after changing my region settings on my console to get the menus to speak, I tried the PC version and they spoke as well, even though (technically) they shouldn't have done as far as I knew. This workaround is straightforward enough to get working, with no need to enable game transcription on the Xbox app either it seems.
Finally, Wrecking Zone, the multiplayer portion of CD3, does also have narrated menus, however they aren't quite the same as campaign. Pre-launch, the options and customise agent submenus didn't read at all in addition to elements of the multiplayer experience (choosing your firearms, explosives or equipment). However, finding a match (as well as success or failure) read so at least you know what's going on in that uncertain period of time. The main menu for Wrecking Zone does read and, though the speech interruption doesn't quite work the same as the Campaign variant, it's definitely a step in the right direction.
Within around a week, two titles having narrated menus isn't something I'd expected to see, especially this soon after the CVAA's expiration of the waver for videogames. However, I'd certainly say (regardless of the accessibility of The Division 2's private beta and CD3 in terms of a gameplay experience) that I'm looking forward to seeing what Microsoft, Ubisoft and other companies can do in the coming year(s) in terms of videogame accessibility.
-- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
