Blizzard has revealed that over 50 accessibility options will be available in Diablo 4 and how making this latest entry in the legendary franchise as accessible as possible was a “flame that guided them all through development.”
Some of Diablo 4’s accessibility options were shared on a blog from Blizzard, and the post began with lead accessibility designer Drew McCrory stating that, “the only limitation to adventuring in Sanctuary should be interest, not capability.”
The team began their accessibility journey in Diablo 4 by building off the foundation created with Diablo 2: Resurrected and ensuring they make the game open to as many people as possible while also “being careful not to mar gameplay for others.”
As previously mentioned, Diablo 4 will launch with over 50 individual accessibility features, and the team took time to focus on some of the aids to dexterity, reading text, and vision in the announcement blog.
Dexterity Assistance
The first feature discussed was button remapping, and Blizzard confirmed all inputs – keyboard, mouse, and controller – can be changed to whatever best suits them. Furthermore, players can swap their left and right analog sticks on controllers so they can “control their most vital button and analog stick inputs with only one hand.”
Button Remapping
Another feature is tied to skills and the action wheel, and it will allow you to choose if you want to change a button hold into a toggle. For example, the Barbarian’s Whirlwind has players holding down a button to use it by default until its associated resource is depleted, but this feature will let players just press a button once to activate it.
Persist Target Lock is another option and will ensure an enemy you want to target will not get lost in the chaos as a ton of enemies can be on the screen at one time. With this locking feature, your skills and weapons will aim at the enemy you mean to take down.
Text Assistance
On the text side of things, a big focus was placed on subtitles and making Diablo 4’s story easy to digest for all. Subtitles are enabled by default, but “players can alter the font color, scaling, and even the text’s background opacity to suit their needs.”
Cinematic Subtitles
For those who love playing as a team will be happy to know Speech to Text software is implemented in Diablo 4 that will transcribe what you say, via your device’s microphone, into chat. Blizzard notes that this will be especially helpful for taking down massive world bosses, as they are meant to be taken on with your friends.
Vision Assistance
Lastly, Vision Assistance was discussed and font and cursor resizing was the first feature highlighted. There will be three options for text – small, medium, and large – and Blizzard has ensured they will look just as good no matter which size you choose.
Font and Cursor Resizing
Audio cues will help players locate items as it will play a sound when a cursor pops over one or as they get near one. Considering Diablo 4 is all about loot, Blizzard has enabled a feature that will let you choose to only have those cues play for items of a certain level of rarity or higher.
By default, items have a unique animation and color that will signify their rarirty, but this takes it to another level for players.
Player and item highlighting will help increase readability for players and will allow for players, enemies, objects, and NPCs to be outlined by a color of the player’s choice. Once again, there is a lot happening in Diablo 4 at any given moment, and this will help players understand everything happening at once.
Player and Item Highlighting
Last up is screen reader, which supports JAWS, NVDA, and other third-party screen reading software. This feature is exactly as it sounds, as the game will read aloud gear info, options, journal entries, non-spoken text, and more. Players will also be able to adjust the volume, speed, and type of voice.
This is not the end of Diablo 4’s accessibility promise, as Blizzard encourages players to reach out to accessibility@blizzard.com with any ideas or feedback that can help improve the game.
For more on Diablo 4, which is set to be released on June 6, check out our recap of the story of Sanctuary so far, Diablo 4’s battle pass pricing and season details, and our Diablo 4 beta impressions.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.