Massive Entertainment shares Accessibility Spotlight for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

"Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora"very vibrant and detailed. artwork. The background shows a fantastical landscape with floating mountains, lush forests, and a waterfall. There are also various flying creatures and futuristic aircraft in the sky. In the foreground, there is a character who appears to be a Na'vi, the indigenous species from the movie Avatar. The Na'vi has blue skin, large yellow eyes, and is wearing tribal clothing. The character is riding on a large, green, dragon-like creature with wings spread wide. The Na'vi is holding a bow and arrow, seemingly ready for action. Above the scene, the title "Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora" is displayed in large letters, with the 'A' in Avatar stylized to look like a triangle with a line through it, which is the logo for the Avatar franchise.

We are just a few short weeks away from the release of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora on December 7 and Ubisoft News spoke with Senior UX Designer Sandra Madsen to learn more about the team’s approach to accessibility.

According to the Senior UX Designer at Massive Entertainment, a Ubisoft Studio, these are the accessibility options that will be available in the highly anticipated action adventure game.

Gameplay

  • Combat difficulty – Incoming and outgoing damage can be tweaked in single player.
  • Navigation experience – Select between default mode which has UI to guide the player, or a more immersive experience which offers less UI.
  • Puzzles/harvesting – Can be set to autocomplete on interact or set an alternative gameplay experience that offers aset of controls/skillset.
  • Aim Assist – with granular sub-options to adjust in detail.
  • Motion Blur can be turned off.

Controls

  • Vibration levels can be configured for various situations.
  • Controller Deadzone can be tweaked to be more/less sensitive.
  • Controller/Mouse and Keyboard remapping.
  • Controls preset for right/left-handed swaps.
  • Controls sensitivity options
  • Hold-action to toggles can be turned on for various specific actions.

UI & Language

  • Subtitles are on by default, with various background and size customizations that can be previewed before starting the game.
  • Speaker direction – Indicator to show where the speaker is located.
  • UI Color Customization can be configured, with general colorblind presets as well as individual color selections.
  • Customizable HUD – Remove or adjust HUD elements to be shown or hidden for a more immersive experience.
  • Camera Transition Intensity can be lowered for a much faster transition animation.
  • Scalable UI text for the most important gameplay elements.

Audio

  • Tinnitus Effects can be turned off.
  • Menu Narration is supported for the most essential screens at launch, with options to adjust volume and speed.
  • Audio modes – such as Night Mode mix and Focus Mix which focuses on gameplay critical audio.

As there is absolutely no mention of navigation assist or other features such as immersive haptics or specific sound cues that will allow blind gamers to enjoy the experience, I predict that sadly the game will not be accessible for us.

But Ubisoft continues to innovate when it comes to accessibility and their transparency is always appreciated. It is important to have this kind of accessibility statements out there before a game is released.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora releases on December 7 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Amazon Luna, and PC through Ubisoft Connect.

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Victor Dima

Owner and Founder at victordima.net
Victor Dima is a Blind Gaming Journalist and Accessibility Ambassador, Living in Oslo with his wife Alina. Victor was the first journalist in Romania to receive the PS5 & the PS VR2 from PlayStation. He is also working closely with Xbox Nordic and other game publishers such as Ubisoft, Ea, Bungie, Activision, blizzard, square Enix, Capcom, Rockstar Games, Sega, PlayStation studios, WB Games, Bethesda and many others. With over 12 years of experience covering the Gaming Industry, he started victordima.net in 2013 and since February 2022 all his articles are posted in English in order to reach a more global audience. He is the owner and founder of the highly successful PlayStation Fans Romania Facebook Community, the largest independent source for PlayStation News in Romania, on social media with almost 35.000 followers. Victor is also running theAudiobookBlog.com. You can reach Victor at contact@victordima.net

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