Street Fighter 6 has been praised for its accessibility across the board, even when it isn’t perfect. Now that the game’s reviews are out and experiences are shared, like the review by Steve Saylor and Grant Stoner, it becomes clear some of those imperfections are blocking players from certain portions of the game.
Lack of narration blocks progression
The battles themselves are incredibly accessible for blind players. A multitude of audio cues inform players about the distance to their opponent, imminent attacks, and remaining health. Sadly getting to those battles can be a struggle all on its own. There is no narration in the menus, UI, and tutorials, which makes sighted assistance essential for blind players. It blocks their independent progression and may even stand in the way of getting into the fights themselves.
I’m excited about many of this games features, including the in game audio cues. I do find it rather ironic though that they made the fighting Accessible, but didn’t make actually getting to the fights remotely accessible to blind players.
IllegallySighted – @BGFH79 on Twitter
Limited controls, limiting players
One of the features that makes it playable for those with limited mobility are the dynamic and modern control schemes. The modern control scheme is a simplified version of the classic controls, which limits the amount of buttons a player needs to play. For example pressing the heavy attack button can result in a kick or punch, depending on the character.
Dynamic further simplifies this by reducing the number of buttons to three, which are all mapped to auto-attack. The game will decide what action to take depending on the situation when the player presses, or mashes, any of those buttons. This is a great way to introduce new or young players. It’s essential for those with limited mobility where even the simplified modern control scheme is too intense.
If it worked in online modes I’d love to play with you.
Antonio I. Martínez – @Black1976 on Twitter
In contrast to modern controls however, dynamic controls are limited to local play. And even then it’s only available in single fights or local versus. While this might be understandable from a balancing and matchmaking perspective, it does lock out many players. Players who have now been able to play Street Fighter again after many years.
We hope future updates can enable blind players and players with limited mobility to experience every aspect of the game.
