For Street Fighter 6, developer Capcom has worked together with ePARA to improve the accessibility for sightless and low-vision players. Among other things, ePARA is know for organizing accessible e-sport events. One such events is the Shingan CUP, a Street Fighter tournament exclusively for blind players.
For Street Fighter 6, ePARA was brought onboard to evaluate and advise on the sound design to improve the accessibility there. Working together with blind players has resulted in a number of additional sound effects that are new to the Street Fighter series.
These features are also demonstrated in a video, showing two fighters moving towards and away from each other and performing several attacks. The new sound effects communicate several important bits of information such as the distance to the opponent. The beeps of this effect are quite obvious in the video.
Sound effects and volume settings
The press release does not give a complete list of sound effects. Looking at what is available in the demo gives us the following more complete list:
- Distance to opponent sound
- Cross-up Attack hit symbol sound
- High/Mid/Low Attack hit symbol sound
- Vitality/SA Gauge amount notification sound
- Drive Gauge status notification sound
- Super Art Gauge usage indicator effect
Aside from these sound effects, it also includes the timing for the narration of stage and character selection. If the full game contains any additional (menu) narration is not clear. This is essential for blind players, but in the demo on PlayStation 5 I could not find any narration in the menus.
There are also a lot of volume settings for global categories like music, voice, and sound effects. For sound effects that include the ones mentioned above, there is even more granular volume control in their own settings menu. This also includes volume settings for footsteps and clothing for example.
Street Fighter 6 releases on June 2nd for PC (Steam), PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox Series X|S. A demo version of Street Fighter 6 is already available, where players can play the beginning of World Tour. Select modes in Fighting Ground are playable in the demo as well. If you are wondering about the accessibility of Street Fighter 6 for you, the demo might be a good place to start.
