With only a matter of days before The Last Of Us Part 1 launches on the Playstation 5, Naughty Dog has outlined key accessibility features in a brand-new trailer for those familiar with or joining the franchise. As the studio explains, the key attribute to the next-gen version of the game comes from visual accessibility. These features include traversal audio cues, an audible way to notify the player of a particular object within the vicinity that they’ll need to use, to an enhanced version of listen mode.
This feature in particular, as game director Matthew Gallant explains in the trailer, will enable visually impaired players to help scan for enemies within a level. “I think that’s something quite remarkable in the video game space, there’s not a lot of video games I’ve seen that do that, and the feedback we’ve gotten on that is incredible” Gallant says.
The trailer outlines cinematic descriptions and motor accessibility options, but this is only the tip of a technological iceberg. The remake, as the trailer shows, features a vast array of customisable features – down to the choice of which joystick a player would like to use to turn a hand wheel. Players can further remap the controls for things such as melee combos, aiming mode, sprinting, and crafting.
There are magnification and visual aids to assist players in adjusting the HUD display, from the scale, contrast, and a colour-blind mode, to name but a few. The game offers a variety of options for players who suffer from motion sickness, which means, for example, adjusting the intensity of a camera shake.
The Last Of Us Part 1 is scheduled to release on September 2 for the PS5, with a PC port in active development from Naughty Dog. For more Naughty Dog content, HBO revealed the first exclusive footage for the adaptation of The Last Of Us.
