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A Hearthstone mod which makes the game accessible to blind and visually impaired players is currently out of commission, and affected players are asking Blizzard to make these features official.
Hearthstone Access is a free mod that implements screen reader functions for many of the game's modes. You can get more details on the Github page, or get an idea of how it works in action through the video below - though if you're not used to screen readers, you might have a difficult time following what's happening.
Although Hearthstone Access has a number of contributors for translation, it's largely the work of a single developer, who goes by the name GuideDev. In the FAQ for the mod, GuideDev warns that you can install the mod "at your own risk," as it's Blizzard prerogative to decide whether mod users get banned. In recent months, the studio has even worked with GuideDev to provide early information on upcoming patches so that the mod can be quickly updated.
Those updates are necessary because with every new Hearthstone patch, the Hearthstone Access mod breaks. GuideDev is out of action through the middle of September, which means that players who rely on Hearthstone Access to enjoy the game have been unable to play since the August 30 update.
Players aren't blaming the modder here - after all, this is purely a community project built in GuideDev's spare time. But they are starting to ask Blizzard to make these features official.
As Reddit user BlindAsABatGirl puts it, "If Blizzard put all these resources into Runestones, why don't they put some actual resources into giving the development team some help to adopt accessibility of Hearthstone natively? It's really horrible that we could lose access to the game so quickly through no fault of our own, especially when many of us are actually paying Blizzard for bundles, Hero skins, and Tavern Passes; if we lost access to the game, we'd lose access to things we actually paid for. This time it'll likely only be a few weeks (hopefully), but it is a precarious existence when only one person is responsible for the accessibility of a game."
Blizzard has made some efforts to expand Hearthstone's accessibility, as recent expansion trailers have featured audio description versions, though those are tangential to the game itself. We've reached out to Blizzard for comment, and will update if we learn more.
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