Six years in the making, the highly anticipated video game Last of Us 2 is introducing a new level of accessibility for disabled gamers and a female protagonist who is gay.
Six years in the making, the highly anticipated PlayStation 4 video game The Last of Us 2 is taking the industry to a new level of accessibility — both for disabled gamers and the LGBT community.
“They’ve changed the game, as it were, for accessibility,” said Toronto-based gamer Steve Saylor. “This game is the first time that we can actually have the same challenge and have the same experience as our friends.”
Saylor, 36, is legally blind due to a condition called nystagmus: repetitive, uncontrolled movements that cause blurred vision. While he was among several accessibility consultants for the game’s developer, Naughty Dog, he didn’t know which suggestions the final product might incorporate.
In the end, The Last of Us 2 has more than 60 features that he said introduce “layers upon layers of accessibility options.”
Those include high-contrast mode for visually impaired players to help distinguish characters from their environments, subtitles, text-to-speech, combat vibration cues and screen magnification.
“Accessibility is becoming more important for those people who, regardless of quarantine [due to the coronavirus], maybe don’t leave their house very much,” said Steve Spohn, chief operations officer of the AbleGamers Charity, which helps people with disabilities learn to game.
“Maybe they can’t go out and socialize or go to a concert, go out to a bar or to a club. Maybe video games are how they stay connected.”
LGBT themes
The stylized storytelling takes users into a dystopic future set five years after the original, in which a fungus has turned most humans into zombies. The protagonist is 19-year-old Ellie, one of the few people immune to the brain infection. Her character is u