Star Wars: Outlaws – An Accessibility Overview and Initial Impressions
Greatness from small beginnings
Hello, dear readers! My name is Victor, and I am a totally blind gaming, technology, and entertainment journalist. I am also an ambassador for universal design, an accessibility consultant, advocate, tester and public speaker.
Star Wars: Outlaws, the latest title from Ubisoft Massive, promises to offer players the first-ever open-world Star Wars experience. It allows us to explore iconic and new planets across the galaxy. Before delving into my thoughts, I want to express my gratitude to Ubisoft for providing an early review copy, enabling Alina and me to try out the game and contribute to your decision-making process. As usual, I’ll share Alina’s experience, and I’ll be writing from the perspective of a blind player. I understand that many individuals in the accessibility and disability community have high hopes for this new adventure. While the game should be accessible to those with low vision or other impairments, it’s important to note that it is not suitable for individuals with complete blindness.
The game’s tagline, “If you’re willing to take the risk, the galaxy is full of opportunity,” invites us to embrace the high-stakes lifestyle of an outlaw. In the shoes of Kay Vess, an emerging scoundrel seeking freedom and a chance to start anew, we embark on a journey filled with combat, theft, and outwitting crime syndicates. As the galaxy’s most wanted, we’ll navigate the complexities of the underworld, fighting for our survival and the means to build a new life. For those Star Wars fans who are wondering where this story fits in the big scheme of things, I can confirm that it is set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
This game departs from the traditional Star Wars experience, where we control powerful Jedi adept at harnessing the Force. Instead, it offers a unique perspective, allowing us to live the life of an outlaw, immersing us in the thrilling world of Star Wars in a whole new way.
Fortunately, Vess isn’t alone in her mission. She’s accompanied by Nix, a charming and endearing creature who’ll help her in any way possible. The gameplay is standard third-person action-adventure. We’ll fight with our blaster, find the right moments to distract enemies or overcome them with stealth or gadgets. Being a Star Wars game, we’ll explore distinct locations, including bustling cities and cantinas, before racing across sprawling outdoor landscapes on our speeder. Each location brings new adventures, unique challenges, and enticing rewards.
We also have access to a ship, the Trailblazer. We’ll engage in thrilling dogfights with the Empire or other factions and eventually defeat them to survive.
Alina and I had a great time with Star Wars Outlaws. We think it’ll be a hit with Star Wars fans worldwide. The story is original, the characters are interesting, the gameplay is fun, the voice acting is excellent, the music is great, and the presentation looks mostly good. Of course, there are some bugs here and there, and sometimes you’ll need to restart checkpoints to fix them. I’m sure these issues will be addressed with upcoming updates.
The main problem for me is that while the game offers many excellent accessibility features, like Text-to-Speech, menu narration, audio descriptions for important cinematics, and modifiers for difficulty and gameplay mechanics, it’s still not fully accessible for completely blind players like me. The text-to-speech is inconsistent, and the audio descriptions are well-written and performed, but they don’t cover all the cinematics in the game, which is disappointing. Ubisoft communicated all the accessibility features a long time ago, and we appreciate that. However, it’s disheartening to see how they’re still unable to release a game that’s fully accessible to us.
In the video embedded in this article, you can follow my exploration of the game’s accessibility features. You’ll hear how Text-to-Speech (TTS) works, how navigation assist functions, and how I navigate the game. While we have a navigation assist based on meters and orientation in degrees from the current objective, it’s challenging to get used to. Additionally, the TTS doesn’t read everything on screen or the actions for Nix to steal or attack, which compromises the game’s accessibility.
In conclusion, Star Wars Outlaws promises to be a great Star Wars game that will allow fans to immerse themselves in a galaxy far, far away. However, it’s unfortunate that this adventure is not fully accessible to blind gamers.
I genuinely appreciate Ubisoft’s efforts towards making games more accessible and I eagerly await the release of a title that truly meets my accessibility needs. Until then, I hope you’ll be able to enjoy Star Wars Outlaws to the fullest.
Star Wars Outlaws launches on August 30 for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. The ultimate edition version offers access to the game three days earlier.
Happy gaming, everyone!
Victor Dima
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