All Forza Drivers, Start your Engines

October 4, 2023 4:00 PM

Forza Motorsport accessibility is shaping up to be some of the most comprehensive of any game this year, and is available for early access now. Particularly intriguing is a variety of assistance for blind drivers, which is a first in its genre.

From the blindness perspective, there was at least one accessibility consultant, hired to ensure the game was as playable as possible.

posted by Alensin (5 comments total)

That blind assist demonstration is incredible. And being able to invert the X-axis for the steering assist audio panning feels like a very Forza customization among Forza customizations.
posted by shenkerism at 4:35 PM on October 4, 2023

This is excellent - I work in games and having the time and budget to add accessibility options is something I’d really like, so it’s great to see companies with the resources to do so putting some real effort into it. I believe accessibility can be done without too much extra cost, personally, but it takes a real commitment from the developer and publisher to keep focus on it and design it in from the beginning, rather than having it as a nice-to-have that gets dropped as soon as the project is descoping.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:04 PM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

So glad to know this is an option and that the developers went into the game development with this in mind.
posted by Fizz at 6:57 AM on October 5, 2023

I want this for EVERY game! In that same way that curb cuts benefit more people than just wheelchair users, sophisticated accessibility settings are so helpful for those of us who love games but no longer have (or never had) the reflexes and coordination to actually finish a game.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 7:14 AM on October 5, 2023

Microsoft-published games tend to be really forward-thinking when it comes to accessibility. When I played Halo Infinite earlier this year, the very first screen that pops up when you start the game is the accessibility options, and said options were extensive. Would like to see more of this in the future.
posted by May Kasahara at 12:44 PM on October 5, 2023