Doing accessibility right with Forza Horizon 5
Marie Dealessandri
Features Editor
Wednesday 2nd March 2022
Playground Games
Ever since its release last November, Playground Games' Forza Horizon 5 has been shining for its accessibility.
Among the wealth of options already available, an update announced yesterday added support for American Sign Language and British Sign Language for in-game cutscenes.
Prior to that announcement, creative director Mike Brown and senior level designer Aaron McAree sat down with the GamesIndustry.biz Academy to discuss how to do accessibility right in games.
Playground started planning Forza Horizon 5's accessibility from its concept phase -- even before the game's Mexico setting was formally agreed on, McAree recalls -- and made it a key pillar throughout its entire development.
"Things like the shared world, the expeditions, are these huge, really massive features that support the entire game -- we made accessibility one of those," says Brown. "That signals to the team that this is a really, really important thing to us, to the leadership group, and it protects it, it ring-fences it. And you can't cut an initiative. We've declared it as a key part of the game."
"When I'm discussing a particular feature, it's my responsibility to try and look at it through an accessibility lens"
Aaron McAree, Playground
By making accessibility such a core component to your game, you can make sure that it's discussed every step of the way the same way other features are.
"When I'm in a meeting about something and we're discussing a particular feature or particular area, then it's my responsibility to try and look at it through an accessibility lens," McAree adds. "And if there's anything that crops up, then start a conversation on, 'Okay, this is something we want
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