God of War Ragnarök has received attention for having extensive accessibility options. One legally blind gamer, Ben, known as SightlessKombat online, even played the entire game largely on his own due to these accessibility features.
Ben has never had any usable vision, and in the past he required help to play other games. However, when he streamed his gameplay of God of War Ragnarök, the developers at Santa Monica Studio took notice.
Speaking to Sky News, Ben revealed that the devs reached out to him asking for a demonstration of his playing techniques. They also asked for his advice on how to make the game more accessible for visually impaired players. As a result of this collaboration, God of War Ragnarök won the “Innovation in Accessibility” award at The Game Awards 2022.
So proud to have been involved in (and credited for) #accessibility work on this award-winning title!
As a #gamerWithoutSight, @SonySantaMonica, thank you for letting me be a part of this amazing journey! This is a fantastic win!
The future is bright! #AllGamesHaveNoLimits https://t.co/SoXeFGETRP— SightlessKombat, Happy Holidays 🎄 (@sightlessKombat) December 9, 2022
Coming to these accessibility options, God of War Ragnarök contains motor accessibility settings to automate certain actions, reduce fatigue, and button input complexity. The game also allows control over visual accessibility settings to change camera angles and increase contrast, and the ability to fully remap the controller. These features allowed SightlessKombat to play “large stretches of the game without any need for secondary input,” according to him. However, he does still require some assistance with puzzles and menu navigation.
“Furthering accessibility in gaming is an industry-wide pursuit,” said Mila Pavlin, lead UX designer at Santa Monica, in a PlayStation blog post outlining the accessibility options in God of War Ragnarök, which number over 70. “What we have been able to implement in God of War Ragnarök would not be possible without the knowledge and guidance of our many partners. We would like to recognize the worldwide PlayStation Studios whose knowledge has been invaluable and an inspiration – especially the teams at Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games.
“We’d also like to thank our accessibility consultants for their guidance during the development of the game: Joshua Straub, Paul Amadeus Lane, James Rath, Alanah Pearce, Jason Bolte, SightlessKombat, Christopher Robinson,” she added.
