2020’s Marvel’s Avengers has received both criticism for its bland, repetitive multiplayer and praise for its compelling single-player story campaign, but what needs more recognition is the degree to which the developers strived to make the game accessible and inclusive, something more games and studios need to work towards.
Marvel's Avengers includes a variety of accessibility features to make the gameplay experience as comfortable for as wide a range of players as possible. Subtitles can be color-coded to indicate what character is speaking, or they can be a traditional white. The game supports speech-to-text and text-to-speech chat on both Xbox and PS4. Similarly, there are a variety of features that change the camera and shake sensitivity, including combat camera recovery, that can help players with motion sickness, and players can adjust the amount of indicators on the screen to allow them to easily find objectives.
Marvel's Avengers doesn’t only provide excellent accessibility features for individual players, but it is also representative of differently-abled bodies. There’s an Inhuman NPC who gets around in a wheelchair, for example. According to PC Gamer, accessibility specialist Cherry Thompson provided motion capture for the character. While it may seem like the bare minimum to have only one character with a physical disability, many video games fail to recognize the diversity in differently-abled bodies at all, making Marvel's Avengers an outlier to that trend.
How Marvel’s Avengers Will Continue To Improve Accessibility
Marvel’s Avengers' commitment to accessibility doesn’t just stop with the launch of the game, and this is what other developers should take notice of. There have been several times in which the developer reaffirmed that they will continue to make the game more user-friendly even after its debut. A blog post made by Crystal Dynamics in August, for example, stated that more accessibility features will become available sometime after the game’s initial launch, including different subtitle sizes and motion blur reduction, among other things.
"Accessibility is an ongoing pursuit, not a finite goal," Marvel’s Avengers community manager Meagan Marie told Square Enix in May. "This is a very ambitious game for us, and so we plan to continue addressing our accessibility ambitions and rolling out improvements on-going beyond launch. The advocacy of accessibility was always there, but now that we have a formalized team, we’re better equipped for the future." Marie revealed that the studio worked alongside consultants and even an accessibility specialist to get specific feedback on the game’s inclusivity and representation.
Far too many games are criticized for being inaccessible at launch, and then the developer does nothing to fix the problems moving forward. Attention is usually invested in downloadable content or even sequels – whatever can make the most money. So, it’s refreshing to see a developer publicly state they will continue to work on making their game accessible, even before its launch. Not only will they continue to improve accessibility features, but this likely means new characters introduced through DLC will be representative of a wide variety of people. While there’s always room for improvement, and Marvel’s Avengers approach to accessibility and representation is not flawless, it’s setting a standard that all games should strive for.
Sources: Square Enix, PC Gamer