The problem with writing accessibility reviews is that, well, they’re accessibility reviews. We do our best, but no lone person can adequately assess what multiple teams have crafted for increasingly wider audiences. And as games become more complex, fresh problems arise that must be answered by new innovations, while we’ve yet to answer the old ones. Far Cry 6’s approach to accessibility illuminates both the industry’s radical progress towards inclusion and its frustrating present pitfalls.
Before we dive into settings and gameplay, it’s worth noting that Far Cry 6 welcomes you with a warning for the game’s epilepsy triggers and a disclaimer that it includes potentially upsetting topics, such as drug use and addiction. The Far Cry series is known for its mature themes, and age and content rating is standard procedure across the industry, so the specificity of these warnings makes a strong first impression. Just last December, CD Projekt Red scrambled to add a seizure warning to Cyberpunk 2077 after it received backlash for not providing one. Though I’m not epileptic, and none of my trauma triggers are listed, it’s reassuring to know I won’t be caught off guard as a new Far Cry player. It told me Ubisoft’s development teams were conscious of varied user experiences from the ground up.
Indeed, Far Cry 6, like other Ubisoft titles in recent years, sets out to normalise accessibility and disability. After a beautiful credits montage, I’m presented with Ubisoft’s promised list of extensive settings to tailor to my preferences. Most are accessibility related, but graphical and gameplay settings also flash up before you reach the main menu. By placing in-depth subtitle settings alongside sliders for gamma and brightness, so that they’re front and centre when you launch the game, there’s a refreshing sense that accessibility isn’t an add-on for marginalised gamers; it’s core to the game’s design.
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