The sequel to Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, called Sparks of Hope, releases on October 20 for Switch and Ubisoft has shared details about its accessibility features. You can read the full accessibility spotlight featuring Andrea Scambia who is Senior UX Designer at Ubisoft. We’ll share some of the highlights here.
Accessibility by design
Scambia mentions how Kingdom Battle was already very approachable for new players to the genre. The development of Sparks of Hope aimed to improve on that by designing with accessibility in mind. An example is making the game colorblind accessible by avoiding colors as the only way to identify important elements. This in turn avoids the need for additional colorblind settings. The addition of a map and compass allows players to explore the world without getting lost. And control reminders are displayed during battles.
By preventing sudden camera movements, the game avoids a common motion sickness trigger. Additionally players can also change the camera sensitivity and disable screen shake.
The control scheme is simple by design. Menus are navigable by left stick or D-pad and players are also able to change several settings to reduce repetitive button presses and change hold actions to toggles. Players can replace button-mashing actions with a single button press. Players may set battles to fast-forward through enemy turns to avoid even more button presses.
Providing an accessible challenge
Lastly, when talking about difficulty Scambia explains there are 3 pre-set difficulty levels while further customization of the gameplay is possible. Settings may affect the health of the player and enemies, the damage dealt, or even enable invulnerability. This customization is without consequences. Players are not punished for changing the challenge to a more comfortable level for them. Primary weapons also lock onto enemies automatically.
As always we really appreciate seeing accessibility information shared in detail before launch and hope this trend continues across the industry.
