New features for Naughty Dog's upcoming remake include audio descriptions for cutscenes, different difficulty sliders, and dialogue being played via haptic feedback for deaf players.
With The Last of Us Part I releasing on the PlayStation 5 next week, developer Naughty Dog has revealed in a PlayStation Blog the full suite of accessibility options that'll be available to players at launch. Director Matt Gallant said that the remake was made to be "an accessible experience for blind players, for deaf players, for players with motor accessibility needs."
One of the biggest additions to The Last of Us Part I comes in the form of audio descriptions during cutscenes. Naughty Dog partnered with Descriptive Video Works, a company that's been specializing in describing games, films, and TV for nearly 20 years.
To provide an example of what the game will be like with that function, Sony recently released a version of the game's launch trailer with the feature active. This marks the first game to ever include an audio description feature for cinematics.
Last month, accessibility features for the upcoming remake were leaked. Among the leaks were different options for traversal, adjusting field of view for motion sick players, and skipping puzzles entirely.
The options present in the remake follow on from those present in The Last of Us Part II back in 2020, such as customizing button layouts, presets for vision, hearing, and motor impaired players, and a screen magnifier.
When the original The Last of Us released in 2013, the game was lacking in the way of accessibility options. Beginning with Uncharted 4: A Thief's End in 2016, Naughty Dog games have featured more and more options for different players.
Similar to the audio descriptions, Gallant highlighted a feature that will play dialogue through a DualSense controller via haptic feedback. Through this function, a deaf player "can feel the way a line is delivered, can feel the emphasis, along with the subtitles to give some sense of how that line is delivered," explained Gallant.
The PlayStation Blog has a comprehensive breakdown of all the accessibility features in The Last of Us Part I, including presets for vision, hearing, and motor controls, visual aids, and motion sickness. There are even options to tweak enemies, resources, stealth, and the player themselves to any one of the game's five difficulty settings.
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