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A brand-new The Last of Us Part 1 accessibility trailer shows off what continues to be industry-leading features from Naughty Dog.
"To some extent, the principles behind accessibility are good universal design principles," game director Matthew Gallant says in the video. "Thankfully we're able to think about 'Okay well, if this information is only available on-screen, then it's not accessible to a blind player' or 'if this information is something you only hear, it's not accessible to a deaf player'."
Naughty Dog is pushing the accessibility envelope when it comes to in-game cues. An enhanced listen mode lets you scan for enemies, cinematic audio descriptions paint a picture of what's going on in a cut-scene, and traversal audio clues let players know when they've come across an object that's necessary for the campaign to move forward. "That suite of features enables the gameplay to be played by players who are blind and have low vision. I think that's something quite remarkable in the video game space. There's not a lot of other games I've seen do that," Gallant says.
A PlayStation blog post goes into great detail about all of the accessibility options available in The Last of Us Part 1, from alternative controls to visual aids and motion sickness options. One of the most astonishing accessibility features started as a prototype before being fully implemented in The Last of Us Part 1 for PS5. You can turn on a feature that plays dialogue through the DualSense controller as haptic feedback. "That way a deaf player can feel the way a line is delivered, can feel the emphasis, along with the subtitles to give some sense of how that line is delivered," Gallant says.
This is truly some groundbreaking stuff, and a great example of how the industry can better accommodate players of all backgrounds and abilities. Considering The Last of Us Part 2 had more accessibility options than any other Naughty Dog game, and this is expanding upon that, we'd expect The Last of Us Part 1 remake to earn a few more awards. The Last of Us Part 2 won the inaugural "innovation in Accessibility Award" at The Game Awards 2020.
Check out our guide on The Last of Us Part 1 pre-orders for info on where to get the remake for the cheapest price possible.
