Details on PlayStation’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 accessibility features
PlayStation has detailed the wealth of accessibility features that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will offer when it releases on October 20th.
On the PlayStation Blog, Michele Zorrilla, senior UX researcher at Insomniac Games, revealed the new and returning features designed to allow as many people as possible to play the game. Accessibility design researcher Sam Schaffel also visited the PlayStation Blog to explain how to effectively use the PlayStation Access controller with Spider-Man 2.
In addition to the previously revealed ability to slow down gameplay, Insomniac has also added shortcuts that allow players to assign different options to the left or right D-pad buttons.
Level modifiers take difficulty options a step further, allowing players to customize every gameplay element such as enemy health, enemy damage, stealth awareness, puzzle complexity, parry timing, and more.
Other gameplay assists aim to make other parts of Spider-Man 2 more accessible, such as the Pursuit Assist, which returns to reduce the speed of targets and increase the amount of time until players can escape, among other features. Fast auto-completion of events is also intended to reduce engine fatigue by changing repeated key presses from taps to holds and more.
The audio frequency controls also allow players to disable unpleasant sounds like a high-pitched ringing with cut-out at high frequencies or the bass of an explosion with cut-out at low frequencies, or modify things further with a custom setting.
Insomniac also plans to add more accessibility features such as audio descriptions, a screen reader and closed captions. However, these will not be available at launch and will instead be available in a free update in December.
A Spider-Man 2 trailer released in July gave fans a pretty extensive look at big bad Venom, ultimately ending a heated debate about his true identity. While fans were torn about Harry Osborn, Kraven the Hunter, or Eddie Brock, Insomniac all but confirmed who was really behind the mask (or goo).
Despite his intensity in the trailers, the villain also drew laughter from internet users after PlayStation offered Spider-Man fans 19 Inch Venom.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll be talking about The Witcher all day.
