One of the things that fascinated me in the Naughty Dog press coverage of the accessibility features was the idea of the audio cue glossary. There are even elements that I didn’t expect to see read that in fact do, which is a great and welcome surprise. While the speed is not adjustable, it is fast enough that it hasn’t personally been a problem for me, even in intense combat situations. Everything including button prompts is narrated, including tutorials. The menu narration in The Last of Us 2 is, in a word, fantastic. With over 60 there is a massive amount of combinations, and sometimes you won’t know what works for you until you need to resolve a specific sticking point during a playthrough. With this many options, it might be a little complicated at first but the fact that the game’s cursor remembers your previous position in the options menu structure certainly can be useful.ĭon’t worry if you don’t know what all the options do.
Going into the options menu allows you to take stock of the full range of accessibility settings available in The Last of Us 2 and adjust to your heart’s content. As you continue to progress through these screens you are able to customise even more options and, eventually, you’ll reach the main menu with “Story”, “Options”, and “Extras”. Changing this also changes the language spoken by the custom TTS in-game).Īfter pressing continue and adjusting the markers for the edges of the screen, you are then presented with what would be considered the main accessibility setup screen, allowing you to turn on one of the 3 presets for Vision, Motor or Hearing. After turning on the TTS with the right arrow on the DPad, you can then navigate around freely to select your prefered language. To achieve this, press down once on the DPad and you’ll hear your very first spoken words of the prompt system. On first booting The Last of Us 2, there is no speech at all and text to speech is not enabled. Pleased as having so many accessibility options allows so many more people to enjoy the experience and shocked because it was the first title I’m aware of to promise 100% accessibility to “blind” players, including the possibility of obtaining the platinum trophy and completing The Last of Us 2 start to finish without sighted assistance. However, when The Verge released an article talking about accessibility features in The Last Of Us 2, I was both shocked and extremely pleased. That doesn’t mean I won’t ever play the original game, just that I’ve had to work with commentary on YouTube and streams on Mixer and Twitch for my understanding of the first game’s plot. Additionally, its reliance on stealth and survival, as opposed to more action-oriented gameplay didn’t seem like an easy sell to potential CoPilots. Despite its critical acclaim, its emotional weight means that I wouldn’t want to necessarily put an unsuspecting player through the journey unless absolutely necessary. In that sense, this review is no exception: I’ve never played The Last Of Us. I’ve started off recent reviews saying how I’ve not played certain games like Final Fantasy VII or Minecraft. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game and can't wait to see what innovations arise from this title going forward. I only hope that both platform developers and teams working on updates to current titles and future projects take this for what it is: an example to push the industry forward to new heights and a bar to work from. I'm very glad to see that the hype was just as valid as I thought it would be when I saw the initial press coverage, with Naughty Dog putting a massive amount of effort into making sure everything works as intended.Whilst no game is perfect, especially in terms of accessibility for gamers without sight, The Last of Us 2 is a testament to what can be achieved when accessibility is considered from the ground up and is extremely close to being flawless. The Last of Us: Part 2 Blind AccessibilityĪs much as people had hyped this game up before launch, I've always maintained that it's one thing to see demos of a game's accessibility and another to play the title for yourself and utilise those features in person.