Heaven's Vault Deaf Accessibility
Score
10 out of 10Pros
- All dialogue is subtitled, subtitles are always easy to read
Cons
- Not a single negative thing to be found!
Review copy provided by one of our wonderful Twitter followers, thank you Steve!
Game played and reviewed on PC.
Heaven’s Vault is a game about archaeology but I promise, it’s unlike every other game “about” archaeology in that you aren’t pillaging ancient ruins in an effort to get rich while shooting hundreds of angry men intent on taking your riches (and your life) nor are you playing as a young woman with daddy issues coming to explore and learn about ancient civilizations and routinely ending up destroying everything in your path instead. You won’t ever have to scale a terrifying rock wall with far-too-convenient ice pick.
In Heaven’s Vault your only tool is your mind as you try to decipher an entire language based on logic and context. And damn is it a refreshing change in a game’s take on archaeology.
Deaf/hoh accessibility-wise, Heaven’s Vault is equally refreshing.
The options are minimal with the ability to turn subtitles on or off, and a handful of individual volume sliders.
(Note that physically, Heaven’s Vault will be inaccessible for many as there is no key remapping. Required keys are: T, WASD for movement, Q, R, Tab, number keys for dialogue choices, and click and drag with your mouse.)
The cutscene subtitles are lovely and thanks to large text and the darkened background, they’re very easy to read.
In-game dialogue is equally clear and easy to read. Speaker labels aren’t an issue because all dialogue is presented in speech bubble style with a line leading to the speaking character.
Dialogue choices are just as clear and easy to read as the rest of the dialogue.
To keep from being redundant (more redundant?) for the above image I’ll just say this: All the text you come across in the game is easily legible when playing on PC. Very little is paired with voice acting (only the cutscene narration is actually spoken) so the text has to be great.
Heaven’s Vault is a very deaf/hoh accessible, thought provoking, and unique game that I’m very eager to spend more time with.
