My accessibility overview
Overview:
Going into this one was a bit of a unique experience for me as it was one of the first games I ever did accessibility notes for back in 2021. Those notes have been massively updated from what they once were, and I hope they help along with this overview.
I’m happy to say that there is 100% SteamVR support. I mention this because even if the store page says it supports SteamVR, it may only go as far as letting you launch the game in question before booting you to something like OculusVR. If this happens things like OVR Advanced Settings and WalkinVR and really any other software reliant on SteamVR, will close and not be usable because you won’t be able to access the SteamVR menu systems.
Going from that I’ll move on to Seated mode and if it is in the game. Nope! No it is not. At least not officially. This could just be partly because when the game was developed and released, VR was still new and the whole draw was to be standing and moving to play and experience this new medium. However, it has been years since then and we know that VR can be accessible, through developer actions or otherwise.
And of course by that I mean the height offset with toggle of OVR Advanced Settings, WalkinVR just as a whole, or if you’re on a Meta Quest headset the height adjust setting to go up to standing height, though with that one at least right now, there is no toggle so you’ll need to active and deactivate it when needed.
I feel like controls are one thing that maybe have one changeable thing in game setting menus. But, funnily enough most other control settings you’d find in other non-VR games are flipped the second that you pick up an item or weapon with your chosen hand/controller. With this being said, if you want more customizable controls, if you are on PC you can make your own control profile in SteamVR for the game or choose a community made one. And if you are on a Meta Quest headset, you now have the ability to remap every button on the controllers but with one caveat, it states that some games may still revert to the in-game default scheme.
You all know how the next couple of things usually go. You have Smooth and teleport for movement. Smooth, snap(with slight vignette ), & physical for turning. Color blind modes are a no-go unless you are on a Quest headset because of recent updates that added the three typical color blind modes that are found in newer non-VR games, and once turned on it is system wide. So whether in or out of a game it changes out the needed colors. Closed captions however, are in the game options for you to enable or disable.
Something that is typically commonplace in most games these days are difficulty modes, which while at first just seem like a whatever thing, they are a form of accessibility options. And I’m happy to say that there are three. You get Easy, Medium, and Hard. Nothing crazy is weirdly named here, just straight to the point.
One of the things that is realized pretty quickly upon launching the game, is you will need I’d say at least moderate arm/ upper body movement. Now much like with the seated mode saluting on the PC side of things is if you are using WalkinVR and you don’t have the most arm extension to reach for things, you can set a button to hold for movement and pull yourself closer to the item or a button to be able to interact with it. If you are on a Quest then you will need Full arm and upper body as you don’t have WalkinVR or anything like it. At least at this time.
