The Coalition published the patch notes for its latest update for Gears 5, the third-person gorefest shooter that’s available on Xbox consoles and PC. While the patch note details a versus event with exploding headshots and some looks at the store offerings, accessibility updates are also mentioned and detailed.
In the official blog post, The update details “Navigational Ping” a new feature that has four options for players to choose from and is currently only available in Escape mode.
The first is Full Path Always, a feature that will continually ping the player towards the right path using a breadcrumb-style ping. Doorways Always is the other feature that will do similarly but will instead continuously ping the main exit on whatever map the player is playing on.
Full Path of Taccom will use a breadcrumb-style ping in a similar way to Full Path Always, but it will only do so when Taccom is active. And Doorways on Taccom will ping each main exit but only when Taccom is active.
Other pings are available, of which players can expect to experience unique pings for whenever they may need to take cover or interact with something. Additionally, each ping comes with a high contrast visual cue.
It’s noted that the Gears 5 accessibility portion of the update will also have features for those playing in a Player vs Environment setting. Target Lock and Camera Shake disabling will be present in PvE and will both go up to advanced difficulty.
There are no images or video clips to show these features in action, but the community has already been showing excitement for the additions. Especially as it means that more blind or visually impaired players should be able to play the game more comfortably with the Navigational Ping feature specifically.
Kait, a game designer at The Coalition teased that there are more details on the way. The above accessibility additions have also been updated into the game’s official accessibility post.
Gears 5 will be launching into Operation 7 today, and with accessibility improvements being added, players will now be able to jump in and give the game a try. For those with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, the game is available to download.
