Skip to main content

Ubisoft is making strides towards more accessible games

Solo or squad | How to level fast and reach the endgame in The Division 2
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Ubisoft has been working on improving accessibility in its games for a while now and during Global Accessibility Awareness Day, accessibility project manager David Tisserand shared details of a much larger upcoming initiative. This includes involving community experts in the development process before a game launches, training new developers with best practices, instructing developers all over the world, and ensuring that new technologies are as compatible as possible for upcoming titles.

The new initiative spearheaded by Tisserand, included an accessible design workshop that took place six months ago. Developers, disabled content creators, and accessibility advocates all came together to talk about how games can be made more accessible and how the overall experience can be improved for everyone. “The first thing was to create a framework, which was divided into three different categories,” Tisserand said. “Informing our staff, supporting developers to deliver accessible products from production, design, and programming standpoints, and listening to the community.”

Image used with permission by copyright holder

The main idea is to instruct existing and upcoming developers as much as possible, while also involving accessibility advocates in early stages of development. Ubisoft has started sending out review copies to content creators with disabilities and accessibility sites so that they can inform their audiences prior to launch. In addition, there have been workshops where they invite players in for one to two days sessions to provide feedback about upcoming projects. “Getting feedback early is way more efficient than fixing later if you realize you made a mistake,” Tisserand added.

The quality assurance department is also working on accessibility, and have been doing so for almost two years, providing feedback whenever possible. Tisserand says that one of his goals is to ensure that Ubisoft is”100% committed to it by the end of 2019.”

According to the feedback, the most demanded and impactful feature is button/key remapping for both PC and consoles. This has been implemented for both Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Far Cry: New Dawn, and developers are looking to follow up on this in future titles as well.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Another aspect they actively look into is making sure Ubisoft games are colorblind friendly. This can be implemented with filters, like the ones in The Division 2 or through design like in For Honor, where the team used the colors orange and blue for each players’ team, instead of the usual red and green.

“It becomes a loop: We receive feedback, we add this to the initiative, and then we try to work on it as efficiently as possible in the different areas. Or, in the case of The Division 2, try to act on it and improve the title with updates,” Tisserand said. At the moment, there are no extra features to announce coming to The Division 2, but he ensured the developers are aware of the received feedback from players.

Tisserand is the only Ubisoft employee with an official accessibility role, but more than a hundred people are working on improving accessibility across more than 40 studios in the company. He sees this as a “spread initiative” and hopes that even more developers at Ubisoft start to make these pre-emptive efforts in accessibility “second nature.”

Editors' Recommendations

Diego Arguello
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Diego Argüello is a freelance journalist from Argentina who spends most of his time reading in public transport and thinking…
Nightingale is the right game for this survival crafting renaissance
A player is about to enter a portal in Nightingale.

The survival crafting game genre is in the middle of a renaissance. Players have been drawn to mainstays like Minecraft and Terreria for well over a decade at this point, but the last couple of months have seen plenty of new contenders enter the market. Lego Fortnite, Palworld, and Enshrouded all recently launched and became some of the biggest surprise hits in the industry in recent months. Now, Nightingale is launching and aims to ride this genre popularity wave to success.

This fantasy survival crafting game from former Bioware developer Aaryn Flynn has been in development for nearly five and a half years at Inflexion Games. It evolved over time, initially being a cloud-based game before Inflexion split from its former parent company, Improbable, which handed over its stake in the company to Tencent. Now, it’s finally entering early access for the wider public to play -- and couldn’t be doing so at a more perfect time.

Read more
The best Far Cry games, ranked
Dani with weapon posing in Far Cry 6.

A series like Far Cry is rather unique within the industry. There are very few other FPS franchises that completely swap out characters and settings between every major installment, but all still feel like a cohesive whole. Some are more different than others, but the formula of an open-world shooter has proven a strong enough foundation to build one of the biggest series in Ubisoft history. From its start in 2004 until now, we've had plenty of numbered and spin-off entries to shoot and explore, but which holds up as the best? Let's review the main Far Cry series and decide which ones are the best and which should be left behind.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Read more
The best Prince of Persia games, ranked
The immortals in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

There are few game series still going today that have a history that goes back as far as the Prince of Persia series (outside of Nintendo, that is). Starting in 1989, the series has had many ups and downs in terms of popularity as the games have taken on new forms and styles. It has even gone dormant for multiple years at a time. Here' we'll turn back the sands of time to review the series as a whole and determine which Prince of Persia games are the best and which are better left in the past.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Read more