The Five Accessibility Successes of 2023 So Far
May 18 marked the 12th annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), a day to celebrate and raise awareness for accessibility across varying industries. Not only does it help to highlight new innovations, it also continuously reinforces the notion that disabled people need assistive tech to thrive. For games, studios regularly refine and create new options and design practices seeking to eliminate as many barriers as possible.
2023 is already off to a strong start, with options and design practices pushing accessibility beyond some of last year’s biggest hits. It’s quickly becoming apparent that disabled players no longer need to hope for accessibility to be included in a game, but rather can comfortably join in the excitement of new titles. But beyond adding features, many of 2023’s announcements and releases demonstrate the necessity to explore new types of accessibility and even open entire systems to a significant group of disabled players. To celebrate GAAD, let’s explore some of my favorite accessibility highlights from the past five months.
In January, during PlayStation’s CES conference, the studio revealed Project Leonardo, an adaptive controller designed for physically disabled individuals. With approximately eight customizable buttons, a control stick with three different shapes and sizes, and even four 3.5mm AUX ports, PlayStation finally addressed its lack of accessible hardware.
This is my most anticipated release, and arguably, my favorite announcement from this year. Despite the software accessibility that PlayStation studios like Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, and Insomniac Games regularly incorporate into their titles, I’ve never been able to play a PS5 game. And several years after the release of the
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