Rare’s pirate adventure game, Sea of Thieves has recently seen a new content update that saw Lost Treasures arrive and improvements to the Tall Tales. While that update is noted as version 2.0.15, the most recent update took place on June 2 and introduced a couple of accessibility options that are very welcomed! Bringing the version of the game to 2.0.15.1, the two updates are accessibility focused.
When the Lost Treasures titled update went live last month, it introduced the option to increase text size across the game. However, with this update the text chat scale feature now allows players to tweak from the new default size of 0.1 down to 0.5. This allows players greater control over the text sizes and allows them to return the text chat notifications back to their original size.
Improvements have also been introduced to the Let Games Read to Me feature. The new addition is called “Narrate Toast Messages” which provides the player with extra narration instructions for whenever a popup toast notification appears in-game.
If you want this option enabled, it’ll include narration for toast popups such as selling treasure, getting crew invites, and players joining your crew. There’s also a fix for the speaking trumpet. With speech-to-text enabled, the speech converted into text will now be shown over a greater distance.
This update includes the option to move the ‘Text Chat Scale’ option within Accessibility Settings from 1.0 (new default) down to 0.5 (previous size). Full release notes: https://t.co/lrKs80zocU
— Sea of Thieves (@SeaOfThieves) June 2, 2020
Other improvements are your usual fixes such as hit registration being improved for moving characters, texture fixes, and more.
Rare has been continually on top of improving accessibility features in See of Thieves. Accessibility specialist, Ian Hamilton brought to light how many updates the game has recieved that have accessibility features updated or added.
So just to be clear, here’s a list of which Sea Of Thieves updates have included accessibility upgrades:
— Ian Hamilton (@ianhamilton_) June 4, 2020
2.0.15.1
2.0.15
2.0.14
2.0.13
2.0.12
2.0.8
2.0.5
2.0.3
2.0
1.4.5
1.4.4
1.4.2
1.2.4
1.1.2
1.0.8
1.0.4 https://t.co/NcaNqTy6Zp
Crews of Rage (2.0.12), for example, saw keyboard shortcuts that selected radial slots being highlighted. The Let Games Read to Me feature also included radial narration and NPC dialogue narration in that update. In the even earlier update, 1.4.4, we saw color contrasts of selecting items in the settings menu.
It’s certainly fantastic to see the game continually improving to support more players. The game has recently just launched on Steam meaning that players are no longer limited to the Xbox One and Windows 10 through the Microsoft Store.