343 Industries has outlined some of the accessibility features for Halo Infinite as part of Microsoft’s announcement of wider changes and improvements to accessibility across Xbox. Overall, the studio said its aim is to make Halo Infinite more accessible and help even more players feel welcome.
“Inclusion is core to the Halo Infinite experience, and in recognition of that, the team built in new features to enable people to customize their Halo Infinite gameplay experience,” 343 said.
The font of Halo Infinite’s subtitles can be adjusted, while the opacity of the background can, too. Players can also enable color-coding for dialogue for each speaker, while they can also choose to see subtitles for all dialogue or only story dialogue during the campaign.
Elsewhere, Halo Infinite lets players customize the gameplay font size of the game’s menu, while it also offers narration for the menu and adjustable narration speed. Halo Infinite also has a new Linear Navigation option that allows users to move through the UI without needing to visually see how controls are positioned on the screen. Additionally, players can change the friendly and enemy color indicators beyond only red and blue. Here are some of the additional accessibility features for Halo Infinite.
- More UI settings, such as HUD (Heads-up Display) and reticle opacity to make it easier to identify information in the HUD
- Text-to-speech and speech-to-text options for players that want to participate in Voice Chat and either need to send synthesized voice or receive voice chat as synthesized text
- New customizations for players to control their sound experience with different volume sliders for a variety of sounds in the game
- Customizability for both controller and Keyboard and Mouse to rebind keys, adjust sensitivity, and change to taps and toggles versus holds
- A new Movement Assisted Steering feature, which lets you use additional controls to help steer wheeled vehicles rather than just the classic “look-to-steer” mechanic
In terms of in-game representation for people with different body types, Halo Infinite features prosthetic options for Spartan customization–you can see this in the Halo Infinite beta. 343 worked with the group Warfighter Engaged on this effort specifically.
“Accessibility is a journey, and 343 Industries will continue to update Halo Infinite in ways that empower as many people as possible to battle alongside the Master Chief,” 343 said.
This announcement came during Microsoft’s Accessibility Showcase event, during which the company made a series of other announcements. Microsoft is also rolling out a new feature on Xbox to better help players find games that have accessibility features.
“To make this easier for gamers, we are proud to announce that game accessibility feature tags (formerly known as accessibility metadata tags) are coming to the Microsoft Store on Xbox, which will display the accessibility features available in each game so you can make informed decisions before you buy or download,” Microsoft said.
Members of the Xbox Accessibility Insiders League (XAIL) can start testing this today before it is rolled out as a public feature for everyone. There are 20 accessibility features that can show up, including Narrated game Menus, Input Remapping, Single Stick Gameplay, and more.
For developers specifically, to earn the stamp they must adhere to some guidelines. For example, Microsoft said it has heard frustrations from some players that subtitle sizes can be too small. For a game to be designated as having “subtitle options,” the subtitles must be able to be resized by the user by up to 200%.
This is just a small sampling of what Microsoft announced during its Accessibility Showcase. Be sure to watch the full video above or read this detailed blog post to catch up on all the announcements.
GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.
