December is a big month for me. It’s a time to celebrate the holidays with friends and family, surprise loved ones with unique gifts, and try to reconnect with the growing monstrosity that is my backlog. December is a time for me to reflect on the games that launched throughout the year – especially those that continue to demonstrate increased acceptance of accessibility, as well as push the innovative boundaries for future titles.
2024 was packed with accessible games, spanning numerous genres and developed by studios of all sizes. As understanding and implementation of industry features and designs continue to evolve, games are more accessible than ever. And with this year’s final issue of Access Designed, IGN wants to recognize several games for their accessibility excellence.
Runner-up: Dragon Age: The Wellguard
The latest installment in BioWare’s fantasy RPG series, Dragon Age: The Villagard, is the purest definition of accessibility normalization and standardization. Not only does this demonstrate the studio’s increased commitment to players with disabilities since Dragon Age: Inquisition’s release in 2014, but Veilguard’s accessibility offerings also cater impressively to an array of disabilities.
Visual features such as subtitle adjustment, colorblind filters, and both melee and ranged threat indicators allow deaf and hard of hearing users to process gameplay information without audio. For blind and low-vision players, Veilguard’s options offer audio indicators for incoming attacks, dialogue options, and interactive objects – all of which are important for combat, storytelling, and overworld traversal. Physically disabled players can remap the controls, toggle options for mechanics such as blocking, aiming and hold inputs, and even pull off QTEs and combos with quick button presses.
Veilguard’s greatest accessibility achievement, however, comes in the form of dynamic difficulty. The difficulty is not unanimous. Not only do the understanding of rules, procedures, and challenges vary between studios, individual games, and player experience—most difficulty settings only deal with enemy aggression, player damage output, and player health. But in Veilguard, disabled players can change settings such as enemy resistance, enemy weakness, time window for dodging and parrying, enemy health and aggression. You can even toggle player death, allowing you to survive no matter how much damage you take. Combine this with settings that allow players to continuously access previously learned information, have consistent waypoints for objectives and overworld items, and the ability to pause whenever you want, and players with disabilities are given the opportunity to process or recover stamina each encounter.
Wellgard isn’t perfect. Some features like single stick movement and powerful guidance system are missing. Yet it still serves as the best modern accessible experience. The industry continues to give due praise to games like The Last of Us Part 2, but Velgard shows that it’s time to move beyond the idea that a single game deserves all the accolades for accessibility. Instead, accessibility is evolving across industries, and Velgard is one of the prime examples this year.
Runner Up: Botany Manor
It’s a common misconception that accessibility can only be achieved by companies owned by wealthy mega-corporations like Microsoft or Sony. The belief that accessibility requires dozens of developers and countless amounts of money continues to plague innovation. But Botany Manor, a low-budget puzzle game, proves that such belief is a mistake.
Developed by Balloon Studios and published by Whitethorn Games, Botany Manor is a soothing puzzle solving game set in a beautiful house in 19th century England. This genre, admittedly, is not my favorite – I prefer action and turn-based RPGs. But Botany Manor’s accessibility features and design make this game an unexpectedly pleasant surprise. For starters, it offers full support for mouse and keyboard or controller depending on your preferred setup. It offers single stick gameplay with the option to toggle the ability to look around. Finally, a toggle to Sprint is also provided.
This is an admittedly small selection of options, but they are enhanced by the impressive use of design included in Botany Manor. There is no time limit for solving puzzles; Instead players are allowed to take as much time as they need to figure out how to grow certain plants. Additionally, puzzles are assigned to a select number of cells per chapter. Instead of opening up the entire manor to players, which can feel overwhelming, those with physical and cognitive disabilities can save energy by knowing that the puzzles are within categories.
Botany Manor is by no means perfect, as blind and low-vision players will undoubtedly struggle without specific audio-based options. But an indie studio that makes a game with such an accessibility-focused focus on inclusive design should be rewarded for its efforts. Botany Manor is proof that you don’t need a huge budget or dozens of options to make puzzle games accessible.
Winner: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
The winner of this year’s Accessibility Awards is Bittersweet. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown proved to be truly innovative for the Metroidvania genre. However, publisher Ubisoft recently disbanded the Montpellier-based development team and assigned them to several new projects, meaning there’s little chance of a sequel or future innovation from the studio. But I’m not awarding developers out of pity. Rather, I’m rewarding the team for creating the most innovatively accessible experience of 2024.
Lost Crown offers customizable controls, subtitles, audio indicators for various attacks, and a toggle that automatically unfreezes your character when frozen by the freeze status effect. But these options ultimately pale in comparison to the innovative Memory Shards and Guided Mode features.
The Metroidvania genre relies heavily on memorization and backtracking. Areas are meant to be explored multiple times throughout playthrough, with each segment unlocking new levels on repeated visits as players acquire new tools or abilities. Memory Shards allow players to keep a screenshot of a location on the overworld map, reminding them of hidden items or new route obstacles that can only be accessed with skills or equipment not yet acquired. Seen a power-up at the beginning of a zone that is inaccessible? Place a memory shard on the map to remind you to come back when you progress This feature is generally praised as a gameplay tool, but it’s also an incredibly helpful tool for players of all cognitive abilities.
To keep up with Memory Shards, Guided Mode shows players exactly where their next objective is, as well as highlighting any upcoming obstacles along the way. Combined, these two features dramatically reduce the potential for cognitive overload while still respecting the core feature of a Metroidvania – exploration. While guides and placeable hints aren’t new to gaming, Metroidvania games have always been dense and vague and, as a result, cognitively inaccessible. That is until the release of The Lost Crown. This year’s Prince of Persia is truly a game (and genre) changer.
2024 continues the trend of improving accessible experiences for players with disabilities. We no longer expect specific studios to follow for accessible games. From AAA to indie, disabled players are no longer limited to specific genres due to accessibility offerings. And while barriers still exist, 2024 signals growing support from studios that continue to adopt accessibility best practices. Barring a few glitches, 2024 was as accessible as ever and another great year for players with disabilities.
Grant Stoner is a disability journalist who covers accessibility and disability perspectives in video games. When not writing, he’s usually raving about Pokemon or his cat, Goomba, on Twitter.
