Forza Horizon 5 is a game that has been designed to be as accessible as possible. Not only can all players enjoy it, from beginners to racing game specialists, but Microsoft has also thought of players with disabilities.
At the launch of Forza Horizon 5 back in the fall, Microsoft promised that cutscenes and sequences that advance the story in the racing sim would be translated into sign language. The free update is available starting this week, with American Sign Language (ASL) and English (BSL) support.
A game accessible to all
Concretely, interpreters appear during cutscenes and sign what is said between the protagonists of the game. Tara Voelker, accessibility manager at Xbox Games studios, explains that her team spoke with deaf and hard of hearing people and found that the sub -titles were not enough for everyone who spoke sign language.
“ We realized there was an opportunity to help people enjoy our games better by adding this feature. “, says Mike Brown, creative director for Forza Horizon 5. This allows the players concerned not to rely all the time on a loved one to understand what is asked of them in the game.
The Playground Games studio, developer of the game, hired a company run by deaf people to audition the actors responsible for signing. We also had to ensure the quality of the translations and feedback from the community. Additional work but which is necessary and above all, which creates a precedent. Will other studios want to commit to doing the same?
Forza Horizon 5 is one of the big successes of the Xbox, during its first week of launch the game exceeded the threshold of 10 million players. A first in the history of the console!
