A Crucible for All—Accessibility Features in Vessel of Hatred
Accessibility is one of our top priorities in creating Diablo IV. We’ve integrated it into our development process from the very beginning and have worked with the disability community to discuss, iterate, and test features. With a more supportive and customizable gaming experience, these considerations have helped our games reach a legion of new players.
Diablo IV opened an infernal new chapter on October 8 with Vessel of Hatred. In bringing this adventure to life, our team developed new accessibility features designed to support players who have visual disabilities as they traverse the new region of Nahantu. With these updates, players will be better able to find—and fight—their way through the perilous jungle.
The features added to Diablo IV with Vessel of Hatred’s launch ensure that even more players can navigate the grim world of Sanctuary. We’ve rolled out:
“As developers, we want as many players as possible coming into the game,” says Drew McCrory, lead accessibility designer for Diablo IV. “While we designed this set of features specifically with the blind and low vision community in mind, we’ve found that each release proves the power of accessibility to bring our games to more players. We’re serving people who may be experiencing disabilities alongside new players who might use these features as they learn to navigate the world of Sanctuary.”
Direct feedback from the disability community was essential to shaping these features and outfitting Vessel of Hatred with 3D spatial sound. From the Public Test Realm (PTR), our developers received input on the audio navigation, which led to add three unique audio pings and varying the patterns of the sound to provide multiple pieces of information through audio.
These are the latest to join Diablo IV’s existing suite of accessibility features. You can find more information in our pre-launch blog.
Accessibility work is never done, and the team is continuing the conversations as we forge plans for future seasons. Making a
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