*This article is compiled from IGN US and is not reproduced without authorization.
Debates over "game difficulty" and "accessibility" are often boiled down to two opposing ideals.
One side opposes the inclusion of multiple difficulty modes in games such as Only Wolf: Shadow Dead or The Master, which often points out from the artistic side and the developer's design intent that adding multiple difficulties in this case would "ruin everything", while the other side argues that more difficulty options (often reduced to "simple mode" in online discussions) will win a wider audience for the game, allowing people with disabilities to play smoothly and enjoy challenging games.
But reducing the discussion of convenience to "simple mode" obscures what many people really advocate, and these things are much deeper in difficulty than simple. We need to take a holistic approach to game convenience design that makes it easier for players of all levels of play and with all kinds of disabilities to experience, and at the same time avoid getting in the way of players who really want to experience the challenge.
Accessible games are very personal to the need, and settings that are helpful for one player with a disability may not be appropriate for another player. Although modern and contemporary games already have more standard options than ever before, such as full-button remapping, subtitle resizing, and various colorblind modes, there are still many obstacles that are not deliberately created, and ultimately become inadvertent challenges for developers.
So, with from Software's Eldon's Ring of Law on fire, the discussion around accessible games is once again rife. Let's analyze today what players and advocates are focusing on when they argue that these particularly "suffering" games need to offer more options so that more players can enjoy them.
The difficulty cannot be generalized
Most games are designed to provide challenges that allow players to feel accomplished after overcoming difficulties. A boss may have thicker health bars or multiple kills that can kill the player in a second, a level may include a number of platform obstacles that require precise timing to cross, and the player may have to find and collect specific items to pass the level. When these challenging game contents emerge, online platforms are often flooded with rhetoric advocating simple models.
However, since each game has its own positioning, a universal "simple mode" does not cover all products. In an interview with IGN, Améliane F. Chiasson, Head of Accessibility Games at Square Enix West, noted that standardizing difficulty patterns is impractical, especially given the relevance to both players and studios.
"During the production of Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy, our Montreal studio was thinking about how to provide a customizable difficulty setting, and everyone supported the decision and was involved." Chiasson says, "A few years ago, we added a layered difficulty setting to Tomb Raider: Shadows. While the core thinking of the two approaches is similar (referring to allowing players to customize the game experience), they are not the same set of settings. There is no uniform standard for what models, uses, and production styles a game should encompass."
Chiasson's example shows that difficulty levels (in the best case) are added to the development process early in the process and need to be considered throughout the process. Casually getting a low-difficulty mode that reduces an enemy's attack power or health doesn't necessarily lead to a more convenient gaming experience, and when controversy arises over difficult games, this is often not what people advocate.
She explains: "Because accessible games involve many aspects, and the factors that pose a challenge depend heavily on the people playing the game themselves, making a game more convenient should not be equated with 'the game has become less difficult' without thinking." In my opinion, this is a false assumption."
Barrier-free gameplay aside from difficulty
So, when champions of accessible games and gamers with disabilities ask for additional options for games like Arkane Studios' Death Loop and From Software, if they're not asking for a simple difficulty mode, what exactly are they asking for?
While Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy and Tomb Raider: Shadow include a variety of difficulty options, they offer a number of handy aids for people with disabilities to make additional adjustments to the difficulty parameter settings. In Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy, players can turn on QTE auto-pass, adjust subtitle size, opacity, and display speaker names, as well as adjust how character abilities are operated. What's more, these games can help with the extent that the specified options can be adjusted by slider. This convenience setup is nothing new, and there have been many studios throughout history that have used the slider feature, including Obsidian Entertainment and Fatshark.
Tara Voelker, Head of Accessibility Games and Head of Accessibility At Xbox Game Studios, explains that customization and good design practices are critical when it comes to accessibility. A game without a difficulty option can have the same (if not better) accessibility as a game with a difficulty option. Voelker cites Remedy Entertainment's Control, a game that doesn't have a difficulty option but does a great job of accessibility.
"Some features are very simple and straightforward, such as subtitles and sprint switch options, but Control also has 'Assist Mode', which includes assisted aiming, energy regeneration speed increase, etc." Voelker explains, "The best part is that players can turn on all the features at the same time, or they can use only one or two of them, which is very flexible. In addition, several of the settings are adjusted via sliders, and everyone can set them as needed."
Other games take the approach of giving players with disabilities the option to adjust or activate a feature in the overly complex process section. Insomniac Games' Ricky & Jingle: Time Jump introduces a switchable accessibility setting that allows players to adjust the overall speed of the game. Enemies still deal the same amount of damage, and players still need to follow a specific route to new areas, but the game speed can be reduced to 70% with the push of a button, so that disabled players no longer need to rely on quick reflexes to overcome every fierce battle or platform jump.
This level of customization and optionality is key to making accessible games, especially given the uniqueness of the experience for people with disabilities. Moreover, this approach can be used entirely at the discretion of the individual player, rather than bundling it to a specific difficulty level that changes the entire game.
"Some customized content is standard accessibility options (text size, remapping, subtitles, etc.), but many of them have an impact on the game as a whole." "If you're good at decryption, but you're not good at fighting because of slower reflexes, you probably won't want to adjust the difficulty of everything at once," Voelker says. After all, you're happy with the decryption part, so just fine-tune the battle section to make it a level that suits your challenge."
All of this can be implemented in a game such as Ricky & Tinker Bell: Time Jump without breaking the developer's original design intent. Players who don't need these tools are free to choose whether to use them or not, and those who really need them will also be able to experience the worldview, story, and gameplay created by Insomniac. But to really improve the experience, you need to build these features on the foundational level of the game.
Accessible gaming through inclusive design
While additional options and features are critical to accessibility, the overall design of the game is equally important for accessibility options and for removing non-intentional barriers. Pokémon Legends by telling players whether their chosen actions are effective or restrained, erasing the question of having to memorize pokémon attribute restraints in order to play the longevity series. Minecraft doesn't have subtitles because there aren't any lines in the game, and as Voelker says, games like Planet Edge 2 that have clearly visible markings on the target or enemy head don't require additional options to facilitate colorblind players.
Clinton Lexa, Ubisoft's Accessibility Program Manager, points out that we often think that a game's lack of setup options equates to a lack of convenience, so he wants us to review the overall design of a game.
"Inclusive design is a very exciting concept that takes into account the overall design, so the barriers that players face can be more directly adjusted at the design stage." "Consider things like, 'Do we really need to rub together?'" he said. Do we really need to enter instructions to trigger this action? Can it be automated?' And so on, when you've thought as much about the player's needs as much as possible in the game's basic design, additional options will appear."
The practice of inclusive design allows people with disabilities to enjoy challenging gameplay without the need for a "simple mode". Lexa says that Wataru: Rise of Fennis uses audio, graphics, and even body sensation to seamlessly highlight points of interest and clearly display attacks when encountering enemies. He also appreciated Supergiant Games' approach to Hades, a game that required the player to fail countless times, and even if the player turned on the "Divine Power Mode", the game was still challenging, this feature did not reduce the difficulty, but provided a small defense boost after each death of the player. The way Hades operates doesn't force the player to use every key in battle, although each key on the controller has its own purpose.
This level of accessibility also applies to Soul games, which tend to be at the center of the "simple mode" topic, and even advocates of offering more options often tend to seek more accessibility options and inclusive design, rather than just a simpler difficulty mode. Lexa points out that in fact, soul games are already doing some fruitful and inclusive design work.
Lexa said: "I think Soul games have done a great job in many aspects of inclusive design. Enemy behavior patterns are a good way to convey what will happen next and how you need to react. There are also many environmental differences in the design between the different levels, which can guide the player through learning and memory, and can effectively reduce the dependence on the map."
In these well-known hardcore games, these are of course all well designed. For example, Lexa believes that without drastically changing the core game mechanics, the ability to adjust the timing of dodging or parrying can be added to the game.
He explains, "It doesn't have to be a setup option or another mode, it can be an item that the player can equip, giving them a longer dodge window."
In games like Dark Souls, items that can change attributes such as strength, agility, or faith do exist and are commonly used, so creating an equipment that gives the player a little bonus shouldn't spoil the immersion of the game. With this inclusive design concept, it is no longer necessary to increase the difficulty level of design.
Overall, the debate comes back to this point: the actual expectations of proponents of accessible games and many players are much greater than a simple "simple mode", and the convenience of a game is incomplete entirely based on whether it includes a difficulty mode option. After all, as Lexa says, people with disabilities also want to challenge themselves.
"We don't want to take away everyone's right to challenge difficulties, but we still want more players to get a sense of accomplishment."
As a result, with the launch of Eldon's Circle of Law, periodic discussions about whether From Software games need simple modes are once again rife. But you need to understand that such a game has a special need for accessibility, and it is not a simple setting that can solve the obstacle for every disabled person. The real core of the discussion is not about how to make a game like Eldon's Circle of Law simpler, but about allowing as many players as possible to enjoy overcoming the challenge.