Hello everyone! I’m Michele Zorrilla, Senior Advanced UX Researcher at Insomniac Games. With the launch of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Just around the corner, our Insomniac team is excited to share one of the ways we can all #BeGreaterTogether: through accessibility! So today, I’d like to highlight some of the notable accessibility features coming to the game at launch on October 20, then I’ll hand them over to Sam Schaffel, Accessibility Design Researcher at Insomniac Games, who will provide an update on more. characteristics. arriving in a post-launch update.
Continuing to build on our recent games, we’re implementing helpful accessibility features from both previous titles in the Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.. As with any new title, we also had to discover new features to support the expanded gameplay systems of our favorite web-slingers.
Challenge Level Modifiers and Game Aids
Exciting, high-action combat is a feature of our Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise, whether you’re taking on Kraven and his Hunters or chasing the Lizard across Marvel’s New York. We included a variety of challenge levels in our previous games in the franchise (Friendly, Awesome, etc.) and today we are excited to introduce Challenge Level Modifiers, which allow you to customize three aspects of the game: Enemy Health, Enemy Damage , and stealthy awareness. With these settings, you can mix and match depending on your preferences or needs.
We’ll also be bringing back some key game features to help with combat and traversal, which are intended to reduce button mashing or provide more time to react to many in-game scenarios.
Pursuit assistance is a feature we introduced in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered in response to players’ difficulties completing the story in the original 2018 release. The feature will work similarly in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 , reducing the target’s maximum speed, increasing the time windows before escaping, automatically locking on when a target is in range, and resetting the camera to the target when you press R3. We are happy to report that these features will be returning and working with our all-new Web Wings oscillating traverse systems!
Autocomplete Quick Time Event (QTE)Changing repeated button presses from taps to taps and Web-Shooter Burst return to reduce motor fatigue and keep you in the action.
Shortcuts and game speed
Speaking of keeping you in the action, we couldn’t have a new Insomniac game without including two things our team and community love: shortcuts and game speed!
Our shortcuts will allow players to assign a variety of options to the left or right D-pad buttons. If you have trouble pressing multiple buttons at once, want a quick way to turn High Contrast gaming options on or off, or even want to open Photo Mode with the press of a button, you can assign them to the left or right. Directional buttons for quick use during gameplay.
Introduced in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and now included in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, players can assign gameplay speeds of 70%, 50%, and 30% real-time speed to hotkeys. These allow you to slow down the action, giving you more time to react to multiple gameplay scenarios:
- Do you want more time to react as Hunter’s fists around you fly towards your face? Activate the game speed!
- Are you fighting the Lizard and need more time between pressing buttons? Game speed can help!
- Are you waiting for that perfect moment to capture Spider-Man doing an acrobatic swing? You guessed it… Game Speed has your back!
Audio frequency controls
Additional options in our heroes’ accessibility feature gallery at launch are our audio rate controls. This will allow players to disable uncomfortable sounds with our high-frequency cut (like a high-pitched ringing), low-frequency cut (like the bass of an explosion), or a custom setting with the Notch frequency filter so you can better enjoy Pete’s classic pranks while throwing a flashbang grenade.
These are just a few of the features the team is passionate about and excited about for the launch of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. To see the full list of accessibility features coming to launch, we invite you to visit Insomniac’s knowledge base : insom.games/MSM2-Accessibility
I now turn it over to Sam Schaffel to share some of the amazing accessibility features that will be available after launch!
Post-launch accessibility
Thanks michele! So, there are quite a few accessibility features in the launch of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 that the team has created, but we’re also working to bring new features after the game launches on October 20. Some of the most notable ones include:
Audio descriptions which provide visual context and add narration-style voiceover to cutscenes and even QTEs. We think this feature will be interesting to gamers who use audio descriptions when enjoying movies or TV, and we encourage people who have never experienced it before to try it out and see if it’s a feature that works for them. It is often compared to a high-quality audiobook. We’re working with our amazing partners at Descriptive Video Works (who have worked on various audio descriptions for television and movies for over 20 years, as well as games like The Last of Us Part 1) to bring this experience closer to all players in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin American Spanish and Japanese.
screen reader It will read out various things to help players navigate on-screen elements, such as tutorials, in-game menus such as the Settings menu, but also our touchpad menus such as the map, skills, gadgets, collectibles, outfits, move list and more. We will also have access to the on-demand HUD (head-up display) readout through our screen reader status shortcut. Players can also customize screen reader readings by specifying how often text repeats in the idle state by customizing and scaling the repeat delay.
Subtitle will be available for cutscenes and at key in-game audio moments. We have subtitles for ambient and off-screen sound effects, music and more. Subtitles are also highly customizable, including size, color, background opacity, and background color. separately from the subtitles.
These features and other surprises will arrive via an update in December 2023 at no additional cost to you!
Access controller for PS5 and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
I had the privilege of inquiring about the upcoming Access controller for the PlayStation 5 console, which on its own or in conjunction with the DualSense controller allows gamers with disabilities to truly personalize the way they play, offering a variety of options and cases of use. I’d like to share my personal setup and explain how these controllers can be paired in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2! You can also learn more about the controller and watch my conversation with access controller product lead Alvin Daniel and accessibility expert Paul Lane from earlier this year in the video below.
Paired with both controllers, I use my right hand on the DualSense controller and my left hand on the Access controller to access various buttons and the motion joystick. One of my favorite features is setting up two commands on one button. I also love having a control profile. tied to four abilities (mixing new and classic ones like Chain Lightning, Venom Dash, Venom Smash, and Galvanize), Gadgets (including Web Grabber), and L3 + R3 to activate Mega Venom Blast, which I map to the big center button. It feels amazing to execute such a big attack on that input! Thanks to the custom profile system, I can have a single control profile for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 that is dedicated to those buttons that are pressed simultaneously, while also allowing me to assign other functions such as game speed to shortcuts in the left and right directional buttons on the DualSense controller. .
We’re incredibly proud to continue our accessibility efforts at Insomniac Games and find ways for more people to experience the games we create. As we move towards release on October 20, 2023 and beyond, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the game as you experience it yourself. As always, our community team listens to your feedback through our official social media accounts (@insomniacgames). For more information, stay tuned to our social channels!
