Steve Saylor is an accessiblity consult and advocate. You can follow them on Twitch or a bunch of different social medias.
The Accessible All-Stars of 2025: Games That Made Accessibility a Feature, Not an Afterthought
By Steve Saylor
As we close the chapter that is 2025, and a bunch of us have been looking back this year on Giant Bomb and making lists about games we loved or whatever weird list Mike or Dan is guaranteed to write. I wanted to show a spotlight on accessibility a bit, if you’ll indulge me.
Accessibility has been something I’ve been personally advocating for going on 10 years as of 2025. I’ve seen a lot of games become more accessible in the past 10 years, and more and more studios are starting to add accessibility for the first time. We are not anywhere near the point where every game is accessible, but there is progress. To showcase that progress, this list will not be a “this game had all these features for accessibility,” but I’m going to focus on one feature that that game had that is pushing the industry forward toward greater accessibility. Not only is it good for disabled players, but it’s good for all players. It’s like my own take on The Game Awards “Innovation in Accessibility.” What did these games do that innovates and tries new things that haven’t been tried before? Let’s find out.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Ubisoft is well known at this point to have a ton of accessibility settings in their games. All across multiple franchises, everything from Far Cry, Star Wars, and Assassin’s Creed. AC Shadows was no exception. If you look back at what the franchise started with, where the first Assassin’s Creed game didn’t even have subtitles, to see where Shadows has come is miles ahead. So what did AC Shadows do that was innovative? It’s what they did with navigating the Open World. Open-world games are one of the genres that are not accessible to disabled players. More specifically, it is not accessible to blind players. The reason is that it is difficult for a blind person to navigate from point A to point B, where both point A and point B are decided by the player, and there is no golden path forward to those points.
Because part of the appeal of Open World games is their freedom of exploration, how do you do that but still make it accessible? Well, AC Shadows attempted to make their Open World setting more accessible by including screen readers and audio cues to let players find their own paths. It’s not perfect, mind you, but it’s the closest we’ve ever gotten to having an accessible Open World game. One of the things the game did was whenever a point of interest is chosen on the map (which is navigable via a menu system which is easier for screen readers) when you look at the compass at the top fo the screen, if that point of interest icon is in the center of that compass, the screen reader will read the name of that objective and say how many meteres away it is. And because when the Point of Interest is in the center of the compass, the camera moves to point the player in the direction where they should go. It sadly doesn’t account for elevation, whether the POI is above or below you; that’s still something that has yet to be solved fully, but what we have in Shadows, Ubisoft should be applauded for.
Atomfall
Speaking of freedom of exploration, Atomfall is another one of those games that attempted to make Open Worlds more accessible. Where AC Shadows attempted to use screen readers, Atomfall attempts to use audio cues. One of the more innovative features they did was how to let a player know where an enemy is, especially if you can’t see them or if they are off camera but nearby. This game has a feature where you can have an audio cue start when the player is within ranged or melee distance to the player, and it increases in volume the closer the enemy is to the player. Think of it like an-always-running radar. It has directional sound too so that you can know where that enemy is in relation to where the player is in the world. That and combined with a unique Blind Aim Assist where a series of clicks will let the player know whether they are aiming their weapon close to or on the enemy target (which was hugely inspired by Sea of Theives which also has that feature). Those two combined, along with the game’s exploration customization options, can help close the gaps and make these action games more accessible.
South of Midnight
If there was one game that was a personal and accessible favourite for me, it would be South of Midnight. This game had everything I wanted in a game; it had an amazing story and world building. The Music! The Music was incredible, and several songs were stuck in my head long after I rolled credits. It was a unique idea and surprised me in many ways, which included accessibility. I wasn’t sure what this game would have based on the previews we saw of this game leading up to launch. But once I started it and looked at all the accessibility it had, I was very impressed. But one feature that I was really impressed by was the ability to skip combat encounters, boss encounters, and chase sequences. You might argue that by skipping those negates the whole point of the game, but I would argue that it gave a ton of freedom for players to enjoy the game how they wanted. If they liked the combat but didn’t like chase sequences, you can change that. If you struggle with the combat, but love the thrill of the chase, then you can change that. Or if you just aren’t great at boss fights, but enjoy the regular combat and chase sequences, you can change that. Or all of the above or none of the above. This game gave a lot of freedom to play your way. The important thing was that you enjoyed your time in the world and the story. Which was rich with southern delights and horrors. It’s one of the rare games I rolled credits on, and for me personally, that’s a thing that doesn’t happen often. So congrats, Compulsion Games on that one.
Keeper
The last one was actually a recent one for me that I only started playing just before The Game Awards, after a specific update that made this game a lot more accessible for me, and that’s Double Fine’s Keeper. On the surface, it is very much Double Fine-coded in every way, but it’s also a beautiful piece of art that should be celebrated. It’s one of those rare games where there is no dialogue; it’s just environmental storytelling at its finest. It’s great for deaf/hard-of-hearing players because there’s no dialogue, which also means there’s no subtitles needed, and also every indicator on screen that you need to do as the lighthouse is on screen, so no need for visualization of sound. It’s not perfect, mind you, as there are areas where I’m not sure where to go, as the path isn’t as pronounced as it could be, so this does fail somewhat on the total blindness part of the disability spectrum. However, in a recent update, they did include an amazing feature that I love in many other games, and that’s a High Contrast Mode. It allows you to mute the background colour, and set specific shader colours for you as the Lighthouse, and other colours for your companions, and or other hazards that might get in your way. You can even customize them in whatever colour that works best for you. It also adds a border outline around your beam of light that can be a bit difficult to see, to know where you are aiming your light towards. This outline helps you know what you are aiming at. It’s a simple thing having this feature, but it’s one that made this game a lot more playable for more people, including myself. I can’t wait to finish it over the Holidays.
Honourable Mentions
There are several other games that I could’ve included that I love, but I still encourage you to check out.
- DOOM The Dark Ages (full disclosure, I did consult on this game): id Software really made the most accessible DOOM ever, and even coined the phrase internally of “A DOOM for all Slayers”, which propelled the team forward to make this historical franchise more accessible. It also won for “Innovation in Accessibility” at The Game Awards.
- EA FC 25: The first time High Contrast Mode was introduced in competitive multiplayer in any game ever.
- PEAK: Aggro Crab is no stranger to accessible gameplay with its previous game, Another Crab’s Treasure, and although PEAK is a simple game, its accessibility offerings are definitely not simple. They have the ability to turn off or on several potential phobia-inducing things in the game, like arachnophobia, cannibalism, or even just you don’t like someone staring at you like the Looker you can disable if you like.
- Wanderstop: A game that teaches you it’s okay to slow down and have a cup of tea is such a great game for cognitive disabled players or folks who are on the neurodivergent side where life can be a bit stressful, this game is a great way to help with that.
Conclusion
Those were some of my favourite games that I’ve played this year that highlighted accessibility as a part of development. If you noticed the games I chose weren’t in the “Game of the Year” category at The Game Awards, and that is because those games barely offered any accessibility and didn’t make it a priority. That is something that needs to change industry wide. We’ve had accessible games that are also GOTY contenders, but it’s rarely reflected in any GOTY discussions. So if any of these games piqued your interest and you are putting together your own GOTY lists, I suggest giving these games another try or a chance, they may surprise you.