Since Naughty Dog released The Last of Us Part 2 in the summer of 2020 (the remastered version of which will be our next analysis), Accessibility has been gaining more and more relevance within the industrycoming to have its own category within the prestigious The Game Awards.
And although other majors in the sector such as Ubisoft, WarnerBros Games and EA are also betting on inclusion in their titles, so far, The TGA Innovation in Accessibility award has always been disputed, and alternated, by Playstation and Xbox studios. After TLOU 2 in 2020, it was won by Forza Horizon 5 in 2021, God of war Ragnarok in 2022 and Forza Motorsport in 2023.
The driving simulator developed by Turn 10 Studios for Xbox Series X|S and PC, available from day 1 on Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service, also won the Most inclusive video game award of 2023 in Here we all play and in the GACconf Awards of the International Game Developers Association Game Accessibility Special Interest Group (IGDA GASIG).
A pioneering institution led by the British Ian Hamilton, which has been fighting for inclusion within the video game since 2003 and They are considered the greatest experts in accessibility in the world.
But how is it possible that Forza Motorsport was the most inclusive game and yet our VideocieGOTY award for Most Blind Accessible Game of 2023 went to Mortal Kombat I?
To resolve this apparent contradiction, we will analyze not only the accessibility of Forza Motosport for the blind, but for all types of players. In fact, from now on all our analyzes will adopt this approach, started with the Choose Your Own Inclusive Video Adventure Award special.
Although we will do a review of the main accessibility measures and barriers of Forza Motorsportwe will continue to pay special attention to accessibility for the blind, which has always been and I fear will be the most complicated to achieve within electronic entertainment.
But let’s stop prolegomena and get to work. Fasten your seatbelt, we’ll start our Forza Motorsport accessibility analysis.
Warming up: localization and subtitles
The field of accessibility in video games, like almost all research fields, is headed and practically monopolized by Anglo-Saxon countries. And since all commercial titles are localized into English, even the greatest accessibility experts like IGDA GASSIG often forget that the first major barrier is language.
Fortunately, Turn10 Studios has not done so and Forza Motorsport knows more languages than the tower of Babel. Offers texts and subtitles in no more and no less than 20 languages: Czech, traditional and simplified Chinese, German, English, Spanish from Spain and Mexico, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Hungarian, Norwegian, Dutch, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Finnish, Swedish and Turkish.
And from the first time we started the game we can activate Narrator, Microsoft’s great screen reader, to verbalize the menus and texts in any of these languages. Something that, as we will see later, will be vital to adapt the experience to the player’s preferences and needs, especially if they have a disability.
And although the presentations, explanations, comments and audio descriptions of the title will only have a voice in English, as practically all the information is subtitled, translated and can be read by the Narrator, The language will not be a barrier for any Spanish pro.
Speaking of subtitles, it will be possible to adjust their size and opacity, so that players with hearing and language barriers can customize them to their liking. But what will happen when we get behind the wheel?
Getting started: driving aids in Forza Motorsport
Forza Motorsport is a simulator. And so good that it also won the award for best simulator at The Game Awards. This, in practice, means that once at the controls The title aims to convey in the most faithful and realistic way possible what it means to drive a racing car..
Precisely here lies one of the biggest challenges for the accessibility of the Turn10 studios game, in allowing each person to adjust the experience to their preferences and needs.
If we enter the configuration menu we will find a wide variety of customization options that will be very useful for all playersand especially for those who have motor barriers or are approaching the genre for the first time.
The parameters that we can automate or control ourselves are innumerable: braking, traction, gear change, drowning in curves… you can even show a line with the optimal layout or that Artificial intelligence assists us so that we do not go beyond the limits of the circuit or take the wheel to enter or exit the pits.
And so that no one is left out, Forza Motorsport allows you to remap controls, define the function of each button, and use all types of controllersincluding, of course, the Xbox Adaptive Controller, so that pilots who need specific peripherals such as buttons or adapted controls can use them.
Thanks to this, the support of Xbox and the Association breaking barriers, during the I Fair Here We All Play we organized a Forza Motorsport tournament with our elbows. All in all, we miss that there is no tutorial or training mode to “get our Forza license” and learn to drive. But, what happens if we have vision problems?
Be careful with the curve: aids for players with visual barriers
Forza Motorsport includes multiple options for people with different types of color blindness and low vision. Filters can be activated for the color of the world and the interface for people with an inability to distinguish red (protanopia), green (deuteranopia) and blue (tritanopia).
And players with low vision have a high contrast mode at their disposal to highlight the interface and the HUD, in addition to being able to adjust its size and that of the texts.
But if Forza Motorsport has attracted attention for something, it is because it is the first driving title accessible to blind players.. To make the impossible possible, Turn 10 Studios has taken accessibility measures for visually impaired pilots to a new level.
We have already said that everyone, absolutely all the menus and texts in the game have narration in different languages, being able to choose between different voices and customize their speed, timbre and the amount of information that is verbalized in menus and during the race, such as the position we occupy, the experience obtained… etc.
It also has an audio description to explain the initial kinematics of each circuit, since adding them during the race would have been more of an obstacle than a help.
And when we enter the accessibility menu, there are countless options. So many that We would have liked, and it would have made life much simpler, for the menu to be divided into sections (visual, motor, auditory…), as in the exclusive ones from Sony.
Fundamentallythe so-called Blind Driving Assistance are based on sonificationthe incorporation of sound stimuli to indicate other imperceptible visuals without vision.
The most important of these assistances is the so-called Direction Guide. Thanks to the game’s high quality surround sound, We will hear at the same time the noise of our engine and tires and what they would make if they were following the optimal layout of the circuit. And the player will have to try to make them both match.
To help us in this complex task, this help can be compensated so that it is activated more or less in advance, depending on our reflexes.
To Turn Navigation, which announces the direction and opening of a curve on a scale of 1 to 6other basic auditory signals for blind driving are added to inform us of the distance, progress and exit of a curve, deceleration when you have to reduce speed, to indicate the limits of the track or if we are going in the opposite direction.
To all this gibberish of sounds we must add many other effects whose volume can (and should) be adjusted such as that of the engine, tires, rival cars, impacts, environment, notifications… Therefore, There are countless sounds that you will have to pay attention to and react to simultaneously and very quickly..
Therefore, although it will be possible and almost essential to activate the options to avoid collisions between cars (being able to cross them as if they were ghosts), and to rewind the game when we go off the track, as we have already said that there is no tutorial or training mode the difficulty curve (and never better said) will be very pronounced.
For this reason, although Forza has the most ambitious accessibility for the blind that we have seen since TLOU2, the jury of the VideocieGOTY award, of which we are part together with Miguel Ángel Sequí and the experts from the Autonomous University of Barcelona Carme Mangiron and María Eugenia Larreina , we consider it more pertinent to reward a more affordable title like Mortal Kombat I.
Because as the great Brandon Cole, the best accessibility advisor in video games for the blind, who has worked on this title and others like The Last of Us or Mortal Kombat I, said in a promotional video for Forza, There is a natural barrier in which people without sight can play a game like this. Because many blind players, me among them, have never driven.
Last lap: conclusions about the accessibility of Forza Motorsport
Turn 10 Studios has done a masterful job with the accessibility of Forza Motorsport. It has texts and a screen reader in twenty languages and dozens of settings to personalize the simulation to all types of levels of experience and ability, which have made it possible for people with motor and visual barriers to, in many cases for the first time, get behind the wheel.
That’s why, although its difficulty curve for the blind is highwe must take off our hat (or helmet) to the great effort made by the Xbox studio to carry out what has undoubtedly been the greatest acceleration for inclusion in video games in 2023.
The best:
Texts, subtitles and screen reader in 20 languages. Audio description of kinematics. Helps adjust the simulation to players of any skill and experience. Customizable controls and support for all types of controllers. Infinite visual and auditory aids for players with color blindness, low vision and blindness.
What could be improved:
Voices only in English. Complex and unintuitive menus. No tutorial or training mode. Very high difficulty curve for blind players.
That said, Forza Motorsport is a title that, whoever you are, and even more so if you have motor or visual barriers (or you dare to simulate them by covering your eyes or tying a limb), you should try yes or yes.
So if I were you, I would take advantage of the fact that you can get 14 days of Game Pass Ultimate for only 1 euro, to do some racing in the cloud, without needing a PC or Series X|S.