Marvel’s Midnight Suns, if you don’t know, is the latest release from Firaxis Games, the studio behind XCOM. Like XCOM, Midnight Suns is a turn-based tactical game my question is how accessible is it?
Read on to find out.
For anyone that has played a turn-based tactical game before, you’ll know that the very nature of the gameplay makes it largely accessible out of the box. Midnight Suns is no different in this regard, its turn-based nature makes it highly accessible to many people. Requiring essentially the use of two face buttons, the d-pad, and the analogue stick for most actions. Making this game during combat at least one of the most accessible without additional options. However, there are two major concerns, in my eyes!
For as accessible as this game is by its built-in nature, it completely forgets what I’d consider essential options. In a game this cutscene and dialogue-heavy, you would expect the ability to adjust subtitles, size colour, etc. Something so important to so many, from being deaf to having any number of reading difficulties. Features such as adjusting subtitles can differentiate between a playable or unplayable game.
This isn’t the only missing feature you might have come to expect in recent releases. As you can see below the lack of any substantial accessibility features is very disappointing and unexpected. In 2022 I don’t expect to see an accessibility menu this small, no matter how accessible the core game is out of the box. You can always do more, things like a colour-blind mode would have been great to see.
I’m very conflicted about the accessibility of Marvel’s Midnight Suns. On one hand, it is among the most accessible games available due to its simple controls and turn-based gameplay. On the other it seems to fall into the trap of thinking built-in accessibility from design choices is enough. In a world where billions play games, and fifteen percent of the population have some form of disability, it isn’t good enough
Not to mention many people who need or use accessibility features may not be classified as having a disability. Accessibility benefits everyone!
Marvel’s Midnight Suns has a long way to go to be truly accessible to as many people as possible, but it has a level of built-in (through design choice) accessibility that few games do. If you can usually play turn-based games without the need for additional features, you should be fine with this one.
It seems to be a very good game from my limited number of hours. So my only hope is that more people will be able to play it after some updates and new features that are sorely needed.
Lastly, we’ll have our review of Marvel’s Midnight Suns up shortly, so be sure to keep an eye out for that.
