Sea of Solitude Deaf Accessibility
Score
9.8 out of 10Pros
- All dialogue is subtitled, subtitle size options, speaker tags, all important sounds replicated in controller vibration
Cons
- Very rare occurrences of too much subtitle text appearing on screen at one time
I’m not going to tell you a thing about Sea of Solitude. It’s such a good game that I don’t want to spoil any part of this gem. The story it tells is one I can relate to more than I’d really care to admit and if you were a fan of the emotional story of Gris, Sea of Solitude may well be right up your alley.
On the mobility side of things, it’s a fairly simple game to play with your standard movement controls (on console) but unfortunately the controls aren’t remappable and you’ll be required to press and hold X to keep track of monsters and press and hold RT at several points throughout the game.
Fortunately the Deaf/hoh accessibility is much better!
Players can adjust various volume settings and there are three subtitle text sizes to choose from, each showing a sample of the text right in the menu.
Shown above is the large subtitle setting and you can see that there’s a nice background so contrast is never a problem, and the speaker name is always included. The only issue (and it’s a very rare issue throughout the game) are instances of too much text (i.e. more than 2 lines) appearing on screen at once.
Throughout the game, you’ll come upon messages in a bottle to collect and unlike the subtitles, this text, though not spoken, can at times be difficult to read.
One of the brilliant features of this game is that nearly every important sound is replicated in controller vibration. Even the creepy water hands in the image above, while not loud, were paired with a subtle controller vibration.
The other very Deaf-friendly feature is that while you do have to keep track of monsters so as to not be eaten by them, you don’t do so by listening, you simply hold X and the camera will track the monster, leaving it for you to decide what is a safe distance for you to carry on.
Sea of Solitude is a fabulous game that tells a meaningful story in a short and interesting game and it was designed in a very Deaf/hoh accessible manner. This is one you won’t want to miss if you’re a fan of games that touch on the subject of mental health.
