So what is the problem?

The text in the tutorial and the UI are WAY too small to be able to play the game and learn how to play the game without being right on top of your TV. This text is difficult to read when you are right up at your TV, so reading it from across the room, sitting comfortably on your couch? Not going to happen.

As for the UI, it could really stand to be adjustable in size too. Just compare this to the reimagining done by @PVBuk:

The reason we say these aren’t a deaf accessibility issue is that none of the tutorials are voiced in the game. It’s all text so all players are equally struggling to read this. So while there are accessibility issues, none of them are deaf accessibility issues.

You’ve got a few individual volume options in the game menu, allowing you to set different volume levels for music, vehicles, environment, and the radio. And given that these are the only sounds in the game and not one of them is essential for playing the game, we found these settings to be just a nice addition of customization as opposed to accessibility options (though if you’re hard of hearing and prefer louder crickets and cicadas than tractor engines, they’re probably quite helpful).

Given this, we really don’t know what to say in the accessibility review here. Yes, the UI and tutorial text is horrendous but after the first 10 minutes, you don’t encounter tiny text you need to read again and the UI sucks for everyone. So looking at Farming Simulator 19 from a solely deaf accessibility perspective, the game is free of issues. The only sounds are those of woodland creatures and farm animals, tractors, and crashing noises every time I hit something due to bad driving. Deaf players aren’t getting an experience any different from hearing players, outside of the usual differences we experience in everything.

Farming Simulator 19 is perfectly playable and enjoyable for deaf and hoh players once you get past those painful few minutes at the start of the tutorial.

Propaganda Llama is a game of puzzles and llamas that is as entertaining and challenging as it is adorable (because llamas in berets!) The game will be released on Steam on November 27th, 2018 and we were fortunate enough to be given a review copy of the game. We were told the game was designed with accessibility in mind and they were absolutely right! While we focus mainly on deaf accessibility in our reviews, we’ll touch on all the great accessible features.

In the options menu, you can change various volume settings, as well as set the colors of your llamas to whatever you like on a standard color slider.

There’s no voiced dialogue and the text dialogue you see between puzzles is clear and easy to read due to its size and being placed on a darkened background.

When we mentioned above about customizing your colors, this includes the radar that indicates your recruitment radius, seen in red in the image above. You can see the instructions are placed in areas of high contrast and are easy to read.

Also in your chosen color will be the llamas you’ve indoctrinated (your goal is to time it properly to collect every llama in each area) and once recruited, their dialogue is as nicely subtitled as every other bit of text.

In this image, on the left side, you’ll see your control choices. All that’s required of you is one tap of either the space bar, the mouse button, or a face button on a gamepad (the controls don’t appear to be remappable) at the right time to collect your llamas. The levels increase in difficulty as you progress.

We had fun during our time spent in this game (or rather, Courtney had fun laughing at Susan cussing at the llamas because she’s terrible at puzzles). If puzzle games are your thing, the accessibility (deaf and otherwise) of Propaganda Llama is great and you’ll definitely enjoy indoctrinating your llamas!

You’re asked at the start of a new game which language you’d like to play in and while there are no options to turn subtitles on or off, this isn’t an issue because there is only text dialogue, so subtitles are all you get. This also means that they’re very well done too. Large enough to easily read and always contained within a speech bubble, consistently at the bottom of the screen.

It’s also very helpful that unless there’s only one character shown on the screen, the speaker is always labeled.

Important info, such as when you’ve been challenged by a trainer or, even more importantly, if Eevee is staring at your face.

There are also visual indications for many sounds made in the game. The pulse of when you should throw your Pokeball is a nice bright green that grows and decreases in size, and when bonding with your Pokemon, you see an explosion of hearts and stars (not pictured here because my timing for hitting the capture button sucks).

Pokemon Let’s Go is one of the rare games we can find no fault with. It’s fully accessible to deaf and hoh players and every accessible thing is very well done. Deaf players will have a playing experience on par with that of hearing players.

Like many MMOs, Fallout 76 leaves a lot to be desired accessibility wise. Often in the name of leveling the playing field, there are no scant options available to players except the bare bones ones that are standard in most games, such as controller vibration, turning subtitles on or off, and language settings. Were we surprised that the game fell short of what we’d hoped for in terms of accessibility? No, not really. But what makes Fallout 76 such a tremendous disappointment is that it comes at the end of an incredible year in game accessibility. There have been plenty of examples from which the developers could have learned about accessibility in general (i.e. Spider-Man, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey) and even other MMOs that set a new standard for deaf accessibility (talking to you, Fortnite) but Bethesda chose to take essentially an identical system as they used in Fallout 4, complete with all of its accessibility failures, and plop it into an MMO where it’s essential deaf and hoh players are provided with options that will give them a chance equal to that of their hearing peers.

Now, let’s dive into the accessibility specifics of Fallout 76:

Even after turning on subtitles, the game begins with a cutscene that remains not subtitled.

Once you are given subtitles, they’re not a whole lot better than not having any at all. They’re far too small, lacking any scaling options, and quite often, there’s a lack of contrast between text and the world that makes them impossible to read.

Also problematic is that the game is not fully subtitled. Throughout the game world, you’ll find numerous holotapes to play in your Pipboy. Some are related to quests while some are purely for the sake of story and immersion. The latter of these are not subtitled and are instead only given a bare bones (Radio drama plays) instead of the words spoken in each holotape story being subtitled.

Other on-screen text isn’t a whole lot better. In the above image, if you squint you can see the [CAUTION] warning of a nearby enemy that has spotted you. The issue here is that hearing players will be well aware of the enemy presence because every enemy in the game makes noise and each variety of enemy makes a unique noise. There is no indication for deaf and hoh players of enemy presence until it’s too late and they’re being shot at or attacked. No indication of sounds made anywhere in the game world is present in the game, leaving deaf players at a significant disadvantage.

In the scene above, I stood listening to gunfire trying my best to avoid it because shooting in the game is difficult for me. Hearing players have the advantage of knowing general distance and directionality of gunfire in the game while deaf and hoh players will have to wait until they’ve spotted the enemy and it appears as a little red blip on the bottom of the screen.

Perhaps the biggest roadblock for deaf and hoh players eager to play Fallout 76 with their friends is the lack of any sort of player communication but voice chat. There are emotes players can use but they’re not nearly robust enough to converse and plan missions with your teammates. Bethesda has future plans to maybe add text chat to the game but at present, it’s voice chat or nothing.

Is Fallout 76 playable as it is for deaf and hoh players? Absolutely. However, given the numerous accessibility issues, deaf players may have a significantly harder time staying alive and progressing through the game than hearing players do. Hearing players have multiple clear advantages given to them, creating an uneven playing field for Fallout’s first forray into the MMO genre.

The Quiet Man is billed as a game where players take control of Dane, a deaf guy, and explore a “soundless world” which is left open to their interpretation as they unravel deaf Dane’s mysterious surroundings in search of the masked man. This would all be fine and good if, weeks before its release, Square Enix hadn’t announced the release of a new game + mode dropping a week after the game’s initial release called, The Quiet Man-Answered-

As a deaf gamer who was really hoping that finally, a game might try to represent me and the community I am a part of as we are and dispel all the bullshit myths hearing people believe about us, this new game + seems incredibly tone deaf (all the puns intended). What this looks like to me, a Deaf person, is they’ve released an unfinished game forcing players to experience it in a not ideal fashion, a deaf character struggling to make sense of the crazy hearing world, then as a reward for suffering through the “soundless” game, players get their answers, finally, when they play through it again, this time properly, with sound. That’s right, deaf people bumble through the world clueless and dumb, until we have the good fortune of a hearing person coming to save us and give us the answers which we have been so desperately seeking.

Way to cement in that deaf and dumb stereotype Square Enix. Thanks for that.

I also found it interesting that the creators of this game chose to include sound on occasion, dictating what they, hearing people, believed was impossible to convey any other way but through dialogue and sound and essential for hearing players to have even a basic understanding of what was happening. In some scenes, speech is present and (quite largely) subtitled:

And in others, all players hear is some weird muffled electronic swoosh, which they said was done to indicate that Dane, even though he can’t hear and people rarely sign to him, can understand what’s happening. Other sounds made clear, in what I can only call a wildly distorted and laughable presentation of being hard of hearing, are muffled footsteps, distant sirens, and his own heartbeat. People sitting right in front of him talking to him? Completely muted. Background noise of cars and people on the street conversing with each other? No sound at all. Fire alarms that are often so loud deaf people can feel the sound they make? Nope, that’s muted too.

All of this begs the question, have the people that made this game ever so much as met a deaf person?

Yes! One. The one deaf man they consulted to ensure the very rare inclusion of ASL was done well.

That’s right. This entire game that is built around the experience of a deaf man was created entirely by hearing people who only felt the need to consult a deaf person for the ASL parts of it. The Quiet Man, in my opinion, is nothing more than a bad take on a deaf fantasy of the magical deaf Dane of a hearing guy and that is glaringly obvious the more I play this game.

But we need to discuss the biggest and definitely the most damaging stereotype employed by The Quiet Man: The conflation of ASL and gang signs. The creators say in the video I’ve linked to in the first paragraph of this piece, that Dane communicates and understands his world through a combination of ASL, lip reading, and gang signs. (Don’t even get me started on how an actual deaf person can’t rely on lip reading for one thing because it’s completely unreliable and damn hard to do.)

Let’s talk about ASL and gang signs. I wonder if anyone on the team that created this disaster bothered to research the long and awful history of being deaf in prison? Or if they just wanted to make their deaf character look bad-ass so they gave this guy his knowledge of gang signs. I wonder if they knew prisons are full of deaf inmates who are actively deprived of language and communication because hearing people insist that ASL and gang signs are interchangeable. Did you know that, dear reader?

This final point only solidifies my belief that there was not a bit of research or interaction with deaf people done in the creation of this game, but also that they’ve used deafness as a gimmick to be different, to make a cool new game, with not even a modicum of respect for those of us who have to live with the repercussions of all the harmful stereotypes hearing people believe about us being reaffirmed by one of the biggest game developers in the world.

Deaf people deserve much better than this mockery, Square Enix. And I hope that the very least they do is donate all the proceeds of this awful, awful game to some of the many organizations out there that try to bring justice to deaf people in prisons who don’t actually communicate in gang signs, despite what Square Enix seems to want you to believe.

RDR2 is overwhelming and has some serious accessibility flaws. It’s still playable and enjoyable for deaf and hard of hearing players, but we will have a significantly harder time and very different experience than our hearing peers playing it. It’s truly disappointing that this game people have been waiting so long for has let down deaf players with it’s half-assed attempts at including accessibility.

You navigate the various islands with a combination of walking and teleporting. You draw light from round globe-y things with your magic hand as well

The on-screen instructions are readily accessible, offering you text instructions, as well as illustrations and screenshots. There are SO many games that would do well to implement this type of tutorial system.

Actions and things with which you can interact have equally fantastic and clear visual cues, and everything you can interact with, whether physically or through your magical abilities, is orange.

The accessibility menu is one of the most thoughtful additions I’ve seen in any game in a long time. In it are options to have more tutorials, slower enemies, you can turn off enemies entirely, and you can disable permadeath. There is no option to toggle subtitles on and of, but in this case it’s perfectly acceptable because there is no dialogue.

Also, the game is gorgeous, which, for me, makes all the difference in the world when I’m having a hard time getting through a game. Games that look this good encourage me to keep at it because I want to experience all of the beautiful environments.

Bottom line, Infernium is a stunning game that is very accessible for deaf/hoh players. There’s no spoken dialogue, so no needs for subs, and the visual cues and instructions are easy to see, read, and understand. This one is well worth checking out!

Bottom Line

Bottom line, Infernium is a stunning game that is very accessible for deaf/hoh players. There’s no spoken dialogue, so no needs for subs, and the visual cues and instructions are easy to see, read, and understand. This one is well worth checking out!

Alright, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system (yes, lucky reader, you get a bonus dose of my politics along with a deaf review from time to time) we can get to the less important things such as gameplay and accessibility.

I can’t overstate how much better this game is than the first. The first was so beyond janky that I never finished it. The second iteration, while not without some basic graphical glitches, is a much smoother experience in every imaginable way. Stealth takedowns are no longer an almost impossible to manage button combination and while very similar to the first game, the UI has been improved for every aspect of the game. And it’s pretty. No, it’s not a graphical marvel but it looks nice enough.

Now on to deaf accessibility:

Notably, there is an accessibility menu included in the game. While it doesn’t solve every accessibility issue, I love that we’re seeing more and more of this in games. The subtitles aren’t within the accessibility menu, but there is the option to turn them off (they’re on by default upon launching the game). It would be a nice addition in a future patch if they added full captioning and text scaling in the accessibility menu.

Even though you can’t resize the subtitle text, it is still easily legible, both in cinematic scenes and in-game dialogue. The cinematic is nice and thick and large and the in-game subtitles are also bold enough to be easily read and are displayed against a darkened background. The speaker is indicated by a photo and/or a speech bubble above their head. (Note that when I say the text is easily legible, I mean for myself and Cortney, as people with good vision that don’t wear glasses. I can’t speak for any other need here.)

Text gets a little iffy when you look at the home status screen, which displays the needs (and color indicates level of severity) of your community. The red text is basically impossible to read, the yellow isn’t much better, and the white text here is meh. The good news is that players are screwed here across the board, deaf or not, because this text is never spoken, so everybody gets to get up and squint at their TV to read it.

Visual cues are very similar to the first game. Items you can interact with have a white glow about them and the little ticker around the button indicator when searching a container shows how long you have until your search is complete. What isn’t included and really needs to be is some indication of how much noise you’re making, since zombie attacks happen when you’re making too much noise. While it’s shown on the minimap if you’ve got a zombie coming at you while searching, noise level indication would be super helpful here. Also shown in these images are the icons which indicate what actions you can perform with any given object.

Once spotted, certain zombie types (such as the screamer indicated on the image above (it’s kind of hard to see, but it’s shown on the minimap). I also found it helpful that my character made mention of not wanting to alert the screamer upon spotting him, which was subtitled, as every bit of dialogue is. In the second image you can see the destination marker shown both in the minimap and onscreen.

All in all State of Decay 2 is a very accessible game for deaf/hoh players. There are a few things that could be done better but nothing that is lacking makes the game unplayable. I really enjoyed the time I spent with this game.

Bottom Line

All in all State of Decay 2 is a very accessible game for deaf/hoh players. There are a few things that could be done better but nothing that is lacking makes the game unplayable. I really enjoyed the time I spent with this game.

I’ll add a disclaimer here before I get into any reviewing: I don’t often review PC games, because a) my laptop isn’t the best for running games and b) Steam, my game management software of choice, allows for refunds, unlike Xbox and PS4. I also have to note that my experience with accessibility in PC games has been VERY different than that with console games, both because of the type of games I play and because I’m not sitting across the room from the screen when playing on my laptop, so my experience across the board is generally better on PC.

That out of the way, let’s get into the review.

Cinematic subtitles are present and very easy to read, as are dialogue options and crew dialogue while on your ship.

Dialogue that comes up mid-mission/battle is hit or miss though, and I’m unsure why it’s presented in two very different manners. As you can see, the first image forces you to kind of lean in and squint due to the size and faint background, where the second image, while a bit small, is presented much more legibly.

In the options menu, you have the option to toggle on MechWarrior chatter. You’d think that given the ability to also toggle subtitles on and off, this MechWarrior chatter would be captioned as well. The second image above is of a scene where the MechWarrior was talking and you can see there’s no indication of that. This really hurts immersion, as MechWarrior chatter is everything from banter between your teammates, to confirmation that you’ve hit your target or done significant damage.

This being a tabletop-style strategy game, it makes sense that the visual cues are vast and very well done. Everything from enemy type and health, to different Mech parts and their damage are indicated as needed on screen, which goes a long way since the MechWarrior chatter is nonexistent for deaf/hoh players.

Movement options are also clearly indicated on screen, with dots showing where you can move to (complete with different colors for different terrain/cover types) and red lines indicating whether or not you’ll be within range of a shot at an enemy. Enemies are outlined in red when you can strike them, while structures you can destroy are outlined in blue.

Damage is also clearly indicated, detailing every part of the enemy Mech you’ve damaged or destroyed.

Overall, BattleTech is great in terms of accessibility. It’s absolutely fully playable for deaf/hoh players and really does well with visual cues. The one area this game falls short is in failing to caption the immersive MechWarrior chatter (which is disappointing but not surprising). This failure doesn’t make the game any more difficult though and if strategy games are your thing, BattleTech is well worth checking out!

Cinematic scenes are subtitled

The Not So Good

No speaker labels for subtitles and many characters speak at once
No full captioning
Poor visual assists when compared to previous games
No option to toggle on subtitles before the opening cinematic begins

Bottom Line

Should a deaf/hoh gamer buy Far Cry 5? From a purely accessible perspective, no, not right now. Not until/unless subtitles are fixed (adding full captioning wouldn’t hurt either). Yes, the subtitles are legible and present for cinematic scenes, but they’re useless, as you have no indication of who is speaking unless the camera is pointing right at them and no one else is speaking. The lack of the mini map makes it very hard to be stealthy if that’s your thing, so unless you’re the type to run and shoot everything in sight, this game will be harder than it needs to be for you (even on easy difficulty, I was often overwhelmed by enemies because they were all around me and I had no idea).

Now if you’re looking for a REALLY good looking game that has potential to be really accessible too, and you don’t mind the current huge oversights, then sure, get the game and enjoy exploring Montana and petting your friends.