Hands-on with Gotham Knights on PlayStation 5 as a Blind Gamer, plus Accessibility features overview
Hello dear friends. Last week I received at my request Gotham Knights for review on PS5. Gotham Knights is an open-world, action RPG developed by WB Games Montreal in which you can play solo or alongside a friend in co-op.
Today I gave it a try as a blind gamer because I was extremely enthusiastic about the availability of the text-to-speech functionality. I am actually quite happy with that feature, especially since it appears to be using the built-in functionality offered by the Screen Reader on the PS5 console. I think this is the first game to do this and hopefully, we will see more of them in the future. The result – you can see it for yourselves in the below-embedded videos.
Hands-on with Gotham Knights on PlayStation 5 as a Blind Gamer
In the one above, you can check out the first 30 minutes of the game. Luckily for me, there are a series of cinematics, so you are able to enjoy those without me stumbling around in the dark too much. The voice acting seems to be quite OK. As I mentioned in the video, there are very few haptics in the controller, which is a missed opportunity in my opinion.
The action in Gotham Knights picks up immediately after the heroic death of Gotham’s protector, Batman, and sees his sidekicks, a.k.a. the Batman Family picking up the mantle and trying to restore peace and order to this city of endless night.
With Batman dead, a new ruthless criminal underworld has swept the streets of Gotham City and it is now up to Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Hood, and Robin to protect Gotham, bring hope to its citizens, discipline its cops, and teach fear to its criminals.
From kicking down doors and taking up names, to investigating crimes around the city, to solving mysteries that connect the darkest chapters in the city’s history to defeating notorious villains in epic confrontations, Gotham Knights promises to be an open-world action RPG set in the most dynamic and interactive Gotham City yet. The player can and must patrol Gotham’s five distinct boroughs in solo or in co-op and double down on criminal activity wherever they find it.
The other video, embedded below, covers all the accessibility options included with this title. We have the regular options for people with motor impairment, like just tapping a button or holding a button instead of repeatedly pressing it. For those with a visual disability or low vision, we have larger subtitles, HUD scale, some color blind filters, and visual effects to signal different actions. We have captioning for people that are deaf also.
Gotham Knights Accessibility: These are all the options available on PlayStation
https://youtu.be/EWlX-sNgL_g
As a Blind Gamer I applaud the inclusion of Text-to-Speech in Gotham Knights, although this is the only accessibility feature that actually allows me to experience a very small part of the game. I was hoping for some more features, like navigation assist that will allow me to point the camera toward the current objective, spoken prompts for button presses, and of course, audio cues for actions, activities, targeting enemies, gathering information, and moving between waypoints.
As it is now, Gotham Knights is not accessible for blind gamers.
I am a huge fan of the Batman Arkham games and was hoping to be able to play this one also, but it was not meant to be. I know the game had a lukewarm reception from both gamers and industry professionals, but I would have still loved to give it a try.
I will return soon to Gotham Knights alongside my friend and colleague, Alex, and maybe we will record a new video to show you how things are in co-op. I hope he will be able to guide me around the environment so that we can have some fun together. I will reach out to the development team and suggest some changes, who knows, maybe they will listen and put some more time into the accessibility of Gotham Knights.
This is definitely one of those examples of a game that although wasn’t a hit with the main audience, could have been something really special for gamers in the disabled community.
But tell me what you think about Gotham Knights – let me know if you tried it or if you’re planning to do so.
Happy gaming, everyone!
Review copy provided by WB Games Montreal via CD Media sa
Victor Dima
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