How Playground Created Forza Horizon 5’s Groundbreaking Sign Language Support
A few years ago, a London-based teacher of deaf and hard-of-hearing children, Cameron Akitt was brought to Playground Games to participate in a workshop for the in-development Forza Horizon 5. Over two days, he spoke to numerous designers within Playground about his experience playing games with subtitling and captioning in video games.
At one point during the workshops, he gave a piece of feedback that he never expected to see implemented. He suggested that Playground could take a step beyond subtitles and captions, and include American Sign Language and British Sign Language as supported languages within their game.
“Subtitles and captions are okay,” Akitt says, speaking to IGN. “But if you are a sign language-first language user, if you are deaf and culturally deaf and your family's deaf and you only sign, then English is your second or even your third language, and reading in your second or third language is an exhausting experience at the best of times, and if that's the only way you can enjoy a game, then it's not peak enjoyment."
Akitt tells me that when he originally mentioned it to Playground, he understood it to be a bit of a pie-in-the-sky, unlimited budget, magic wand type of suggestion. He went home after the workshops and didn’t think much of it, until around two years later he got an email from Playground. It was implementing his suggested feature into Forza Horizon 5, and the team wanted him to return as a consultant to help make it happen.
Now, on March 1, Akitt’s suggestion is being realized at last. Forza Horizon 5 will receive a free in-game update adding ASL and BSL language support to all of its cutscenes, with actors from the deaf and hard of hearing communities appearing on screen to sign the scenes
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