Apex Legends is a leap forward for accessibility

By Grady Penna

Whether it is a cognitive or physical impairment, there are many reasons why a person may feel uncomfortable or unable to participate in a voice chat. Sometimes it's not a big deal, but in this age of team-based multiplayer games, it's getting harder and harder to communicate effectively with your teammates without talking to them directly. Apex Legends, the latest addition to a constantly expanding Battle Royale shooter landscape, is changing the game.

The Apex ping system allows for more universal types of communication. Through simple button inputs combined with reflected sound signals, it creates an environment in which virtually all relevant information in the game can be transmitted to your team without uttering a single word. The system allows you to place various markers on the map and on the battlefield, such as enemy locations, looting locations, and the direction you want your team to go next. Once the marker is placed, your character will verbally express the type of marker you have chosen, simultaneously establishing visual and auditory indicators. But it's not just a good way to save time, it's a huge step towards inclusion for disabled players.

Communication systems in video games are not a new concept. The voice and text conversation options and communication wheels have been around for over 10 years. These systems have laid the foundation for better team planning and cooperation, but often they are not designed to allow people with disabilities to use them fully, if at all.

Ben Bayliss, a copywriter at DualShockers, who is severely deaf at the age of four, often has problems with how team communication and accessibility options work in online games. "I usually rely on subtitles to track cutscenes and audio in the game," Bayliss said. "Some titles do not have the option or their subtitles are so poorly designed that they are hard to read and require me to sit closer to the TV or squint if the subtitles blend into the scene. " There is also the issue of games that rely heavily on voice chat, he continued. "There were times when I could not hear the barking orders from the team and I cost them the match, which provoked their anger."

These types of problems affect a significant portion of the gaming community. Some studios are not particularly conscientious in developing accessibility tools within their games. Fortunately, Bayliss believes that the industry is currently working to increase accessibility. "Not only myself, but many others have talked more and more about making games accessible. Companies such as Microsoft are opening their doors with the Xbox Adaptive Controller and Subpac recently collaborated with Beat Games to help deaf gamers enjoy Beat Saber. Organizations like AbleGamers and SpecialEffect are also constantly working on ways to involve more players by developing tools for players. "

There are other reasons for this wave of change. New laws and regulations, for example, hold businesses to account if the games do not meet a set of accessibility standards. One of them is the Accessibility of Communications and Videos Act of the 21st Century, or the CAAC.

"CAAC has been around for a long time. It was signed in 2010, but due to a long series of exemptions granted to the industry by the FCC to allow for R & D time, the final compliance deadline has just been reached. 'flow,' explained the accessibility specialist. consultant Ian Hamilton. "This means that the communication functionality in all games launched on or after January 1, 2019 must be as accessible as reasonably achievable."

The end result of this progress is the Apex Legends ping system, which attracts people who normally escape the communication-dependent genre.

"The ping system in Apex Legends really opened the doors to this type of game for me," said Cherry Thompson, accessibility consultant for people with reduced mobility and streamer. "I'm watching friends and my favorite streamers have been playing at Battle Royales for years and I never thought it would be a game I could play, even though I really wanted it."

Thompson said that despite being a streamer, it can sometimes be extremely difficult for them to engage in a voice conversation and deal with what their teammates say while simultaneously focusing on an intense and rhythmic game . The ping system allows them to communicate virtually anything they need with another player and allows their team to do the same thing in return.

The ping system is not the only forward-thinking feature of Apex Legends. There are a number of settings and tools that work in tandem and make Apex one of the most accessible games to date.

"A ping system alone does not quite cover, because there is always a degree of communication that can not be used with the help of it," said Hamilton, "but the game has also speech synthesis and speech in real time – text to allow people to enter and receive voice chat messages via automatic transcription. "

Nevertheless, despite all the positive steps taken by Apex, it's not perfect. "There has never been a game that touches all aspects of accessibility," Thompson said. "Game developers know all too well that nothing is perfect and that everything could be improved – whether it's talking about accessibility or any other aspect of creating a game. "

Even for Apex itself, there is a long list of changes that could be made to improve its solid foundation. "The most important, I think, is the vision and the engine," said Hamilton. "The cursor-based menu navigation required to enable and configure the chat feature is a difficult block for people who can not see the sliders. It requires much more physical effort and coordination than navigating the usual digital menus. " There are still many resources that can be added, updated, and developed in Apex Legends, such as resizing the HUD, more color-blind options, customizing the controller, and more.

That said, what Apex Legends does – and the potential impact this could have on the industry as a whole – is staggering. Even Fortnite takes notes. Just weeks after the launch of Apex, Fortnite quietly introduced a fairly similar ping system in one of its latest updates. Apex clearly has a strong influence and it is likely that more systems like this are developing.

Whether it's a reluctance to devote resources or simply a lack of technology to create these complex systems, there has long been a lack of developers who are proactive about Accessibility in the sector. However, good accessible game design benefits everyone and begins to understand it. We have seen the situation improve by leaps and bounds in the last year alone – and things can only improve from here.

Grady Penna is a freelance writer based in Southern California. You can follow him on Twitter @ufofriend.