Xbox’s accessible innovations and developments have benefited disabled players for years. The 2018 release of the Xbox Adaptive Controller, feature tags on store pages, award-winning accessibility in titles like Forza Horizon 5, and even an annual showcase highlighting the varying ways in which Xbox and its studios are incorporating accessibility into their projects have put the disabled community at the forefront of Xbox conversations.
The newest entry in the Forza Motorsport series (simply called Forza Motorsport) has already been revealed to include numerous accessibility options commonly found in most modern games like control remapping, subtitles, and varying colorblind modes and filters. And now, blind/low vision players can experience a brand-new feature set – called Blind Driving Assists – a series of audio cues that provide track and vehicle information allowing blind/low vision players to complete races.
Speaking with IGN, Turn 10 Studios developers, an accessibility consultant, and Xbox head Phil Spencer discuss the development process behind Blind Driving Assists, the importance of community involvement, and Xbox’s desire to create an inclusive and accessible industry.
Creating Blind Driving Assists
Blind/low vision accessibility is still relatively sparse in video games compared to other accessibility options and design practices. Games like The Last of Us Part 1’s 2022 remake and The Last of Us Part 2, every NetherRealm Studios title since 2013, and The Vale: Shadow of the Crown are examples of games that are accessible to blind/low vision individuals within a vast industry of iconic series and genres. However, blind/low vision players still cannot reliably purchase most new games despite increased interest and awareness from the disabled player base. And with Forza Motorsport’s Blind Driving Assists, Turn 10 Studios wants to change that expectation.
Blind Driving Assists are a series of settings that disabled players can activate that translate visual information into audio cues. Where the vehicle is, when and how to turn, and even how much cars should decelerate are just some examples of information that blind/low vision individuals can receive via audio cue with these features activated.
For Turn 10 Studios, not only does Blind Driving Assists open the Forza series to a new group of people, but its creation is also indicative of a growing acknowledgment of often-underrepresented players. Gameplay and accessibility producer Neha Chintala, and senior sound designer Todd Helsley explain the challenges behind opening racing games to blind/low vision individuals.
“What we wanted to do is build something that fit into the oral landscape of the game already,” Helsley said. “You get a lot of cues from the game’s audio already like what surface you’re driving on, what your car’s RPM is, how fast you’re going with the wind flying by you, and what we wanted to do was make sure the sounds that we were using to provide this extra information that the blind player needed to get around the track wouldn’t conflict with those sounds.”
Helsley notes finding the right noises took multiple attempts, as several trials weren’t distinguishable enough from the natural game audio. Eventually, the team chose varying “beeps and boops” to help teach blind/low vision players how to interact with the game.
Alongside audio indicators, Helsley explains that another feature within Blind Driving Assists, the steering guide, took several years of fine-tuning before it was in an entertaining and usable state. It aids blind/low vision players when making turns on tracks, regardless of vehicle, allowing them to stay on course in addition to listening for audio cues. Further, it needed to account for the individualistic nature of disabilities. Not every racer needs the same accommodation, and the team wanted to ensure that everyone could find an appropriate range when using this setting.
“Not everybody is built the same and we wanted to make sure we were accounting for that,” he said. “Even on top of all that tuning, we still allow the player to offset some of these values just a little bit to account for reaction time, and that’s something that maybe they’ll tune it lower when they first start while they’re learning the system, and as they get in there and start to recognize it and move faster and the reaction time becomes better, they can start to turn those values up.”
Consulting for Turn 10 Studios
Creating an extensive feature set for blind/low vision individuals required not only the right engines and technology, but also disabled users and consultants who could provide their lived experiences. For Turn 10 Studios, this meant conducting numerous user research surveys, as well as bringing on Brandon Cole, a blind consultant with credits on games like The Last of Us Part 2, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Vale: Shadow of the Crown. Neha Chintala notes that Cole’s involvement was crucial for each option within Blind Driving Assists, and his work started during the preproduction phase.
“Before we even started diving into the full design, implementation, and execution of any of these features, we brought Brandon on from the start,” Chintala said. “Being able to partner and design and think about each assist, what we could do involving Brandon and folks in our process, even during the planning phases has been monumental in developing this feature. We couldn’t have done it without them.”
Cole is sightless, born with Retinoblastoma, causing him to go blind within two months. His lived experiences as a disabled individual afford him the opportunity to provide insight that is not only beneficial for developers, but also the blind/low vision community itself. Accessibility features for blind/low vision players need to offer as much information as possible for them to be able to play without any form of sighted assistance. From the audio cues to Steering Guide, each individual asset of the Blind Driving Assists needed to go beyond assumptions and cater toward real players.
“What I showed them was how different audio cues could work together, and how they could also run over each other if done incorrectly,” Cole said. “They need to be considered in the mix. They need to consider what kinds of audio cues were used for each thing. I also brought them the perspective that when making this game accessible, the people they’re making this game accessible for may have never played a racing game, or ever driven a car before. The blind, by majority, have never driven a car.”
Blind/low vision individuals use transportation every day. But the mechanical understandings of when to turn, when to accelerate or decelerate, or the overall feel of driving a vehicle are inherently inaccessible. This meant that aside from learning how to consult on this specific project, Cole needed to familiarize himself with cars.
“I didn’t really understand how cars worked,” Cole said. “I’ve been in many cars, but I’ve never been behind the wheel of one. I had to learn to slow down when going into a turn. I thought that it’s a racing game, so shouldn’t you go as fast as possible all the time? No, you actually don’t.”
Aside from the general nature of driving, racing sims like Forza Motorsport add complexity like vehicle, weather, and even environmental physics depending on the car and terrain that players drive on. For sighted individuals, this information is learned over time by trying different cars or courses. For blind/low vision players, each feature within Blind Driving Assists attempts to translate that knowledge through different means. And Cole acknowledges that many disabled players may hesitate to try this game, especially one as in-depth as Forza. Yet, he encourages blind/low vision individuals to listen to others in the community and trust these settings.
“The thing that I want to stress here is that we offer a ton of customization,” Cole said. “If you feel you don’t need this giant suite of features that we made, you can turn them off, you can turn some of the audio cues down, or modify every volume individually. You can change the pitch of the audio cues, and the narrator customizations that we have are the best in any game that I’ve seen.”
Xbox and Accessibility
Blind Driving Assists are just one example of Xbox’s continuous support of disabled players. And Cole’s understanding and expertise being blind is just one of many disabled experiences that Xbox looks for when creating games. As Microsoft gaming head Phil Spencer notes, these partnerships ultimately shift the accessibility movement to continuously refine and innovate, both for studios and players.
“Inclusive design is an important consideration in how we build everything now, starting with recognizing the barriers that people might have, learning from the diversity of experience that people have,” Spencer said. “In many ways, when we look at these opportunities, we start solving for one specific scenario, or even personal situations, and then think about how we can extend that [solution] to many.”
Forza Motorsport’s new features are not the end of blind/low vision accessibility. As technologies advance and as more disabled individuals offer their skills to developers, the design practices and features that disabled people use will eliminate even more unintentional barriers. However, Spencer acknowledges that studios need to continue learning for this to happen.
“We have a lot more work, a lot more learning, a lot more experience [left],” Spencer said. “But it’s cool to see how the industry learns and is inspired by each step, whether it’s the Adaptive Controller, or the work that The Last of Us has done, whether it’s individual game teams that are going out to spotlight, and frankly, build empathy for people who have a different lived experience. I think that’s fundamental to the progress that we need to make, and I think we have years and years of progress to make in this area.”
Regardless of the preferred platform, the creation of Blind Driving Assists is indicative of the growth of blind/low vision accessibility. And because studios continuously learn from each other, these initiatives have the potential to shape how developers approach designs and features for blind/low vision players. As Spencer notes, the games industry wants to support disabled players.
“Accessibility is not about competition. It’s about more players and more creators. And that just grows the industry for everyone.”
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