Game News
The Season 4 Reloaded patch recently dropped in Call of Duty: Warzone. As part of the update, developer Raven Software has introduced a variety of accessibility features into Warzone. Many of these features have been overdue for some time but it’s nice to see them finally introduced.
Introducing appropriate accessibility tools is essential for modern game development. Some basic options such as colour-blind filters were already available but anything beyond that was lacking. The options added aim to make the experience of playing Activision’s battle royale easier for those with hearing, vision, and mental disabilities.
The new options
The first change is that players can now tweak how long chat messages stay on screen. By default, this is set to just three seconds. However, the new accessibility option added into Warzone allows them to last 15, 30 or 60 second instead. This is useful for players that have difficulty reading text for one reason or another.
Furthermore, this option extends to not only chat but also system messages. Examples of system messages are cross play alerts and friends coming online. Even able players will likely find this second option useful as it should make spotting your friends coming online easier than before. Raven claims these changes are targeted at players ‘Who experience cognitive overload or who have low visibility.’
The other change is sound related. Players can now toggle an accessibility option in Warzone to play an audio cue whenever a message is received. This can set for messages, system notifications, or both.
Raven’s explanation for why this was added states: ‘We hope that this option better supports Player-to-Player communication for blind and low-vision Players’. Once again, this might be a surprisingly useful tool for able players too. Being able to focus on gameplay and only check chat when an audio cue is sent could be useful. Regardless, it’s great to see Raven taking accessibility so seriously.
