Respawn Details Accessibility Features In Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Including A Newly Added Slow Mode
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is days away now from release, as one of the most anticipated titles of the year, and just ahead of launch developer Respawn has published a new blog post detailing the accessibility features to be found when you begin Cal’s new journey.
As there was with Fallen Order, you’ll have five difficulty options to choose from, from Story Mode all the way up to Jedi Grand Master.
You’ll also be able to completely customize the controls to your liking, and adjust subtitle size and detail. A new layer of accessibility offered is “Slow Mode,” which slows down the game’s action in order to make combat and platforming easier to handle.
It’s a welcome modifier, especially if you may not want to play on the lowest difficulty setting, but still have trouble hitting parry timings.
As Respawn’s senior director of development Jonas Lundqvist explains, “The Slow Mode has been a particularly exciting feature to work on because of its versatility.
It primarily started out as a feature we thought would be helpful in combat, but quickly realized that it could be beneficial for anything that had a timing component.
It opens up some of our platforming to be more accessible, allows for different reaction times and helps make the game generally more accessible to a larger audience.”
You can get the challenge you’re looking for, without feeling excluded by the need to have parry timings be so precise, an element of gameplay that otherwise makes some games overtly difficult an inaccessible for plenty of players.
Insomniac’s most recent Ratchet & Clank title, Rift Apart, also includes a similar modifier called Game Speed, to aid in platforming challenges.
There are other gameplay modifiers such as toggling whether an action requires a hold/pull, auto-targeting options, button mash options and navigation assistance.
Like we’ve begun seeing across other studios, particularly with PlayStation Studios first party teams, Respawn is committing itself to making its titles as accessible as it can, and talks about how more features will be added post-launch.
This is an effort that goes beyond a more detailed accessibility options list in menus, and into game design.
“The game offers accessibility not just through options, but also by conscious design choices. For example, artists were mindful of their color palette for certain experiences, and key elements within the map are dual-coded to visually convey the same information in several ways.”
Jedi Survivor was even the first time that Respawn hosted in-house playtests that were solely focused on accessible design.
Morgan Baker, EA’s program lead for accessibility said about it “By embracing the disability community mantra, ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’, accessibility champions from Respawn gathered direct community feedback to inform their accessibility design choices and options.
We realize that creating accessible player experiences is a never-ending journey though, and I am proud of the team’s progress and ceaseless dedication.
We are far from being finished, by these types of design choices Respawn made are illustrative of how we want to approach making games for all our players.”
Source – [Respawn Entertainment]
