At the Game Awards, it was easy to blink and miss the award for best accessibility feature in a game for 2024, with the winner going to Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. You may be hard-pressed to know what it did, as the award show did not mention any of the accessibility features being nominated. But having played through the entire game, I know what they were talking about, and at the same time, I have some issues with saying it was the best example of accessibility for 2024.
Picture-in-Platforming
This isn’t going to be a review of the entire game, but I want to talk specifically about the use and implementation of its most advertised and original accessibility feature — the ability to create in-game screenshot notes. The intent was to provide players with the means of recording a room to either mark notes for a puzzle or to provide a reminder about requiring a specific power or item that they need to come back to. For PC fans, they could just use the digital platform of choice to take screenshots, but this was the first time that such an option was available to everyone; console players included.
Part of the problem when it comes to metroidvania, and open world design, is that it can be very easy to forget where the player needed to use an ability or missed something. Going through La-Mulana at the same time, and a feature like this would have been very useful.
With that said, what’s my problem with it? It’s not that the feature is bad or doesn’t provide utility, but that it became a part of playing the game regardless of whether you want to use it or not.
Accessibility Tokens
Good accessibility features in games are those that are layered on top of a balanced experience and provide the means for more people to experience a game who may not have been able to do it without it. When you look at titles that make use of assist modes as an optional feature, the game in question is not balanced or the experience is not predicated on these features.
The problem when accessibility is not handled correctly in my opinion is when the game seems to be balanced, or balance is ignored, in favor of using an accessibility feature as a band aid fix. That a problem isn’t a problem if the player can just disable it or ignore it with an options tweak. This is different from having a sandbox or free play mode in survival/crafting games, as those games do draw an audience of people who just want to use the tools to create. One of my most controversial points that has earned me ire from people is that accessibility features do not fix a game’s problems. Time after time, I’ve seen games that have been propped up due to accessibility features get destroyed in terms of player interest and churn, and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is no exception to this rule — with more than half the player base on steam quitting before even reaching an hour into the game.
The memory shard feature is a good one, but it feels like the game was designed and pace around its use rather than as an optional feature (source: Author)
Going through the game, I was surprised to see that an accessibility feature is a resource that can be consumed while playing.
The player only has a limited number of “pictures” they can take before they must delete some. This left a bad taste in my mouth as it reminded me of when NetherRealm implemented the option for “easy fatalities” that allow someone to push just one button and perform the character’s fatality. On paper, this sounds great and a way of providing accessibility for someone who can’t remember those combinations or struggles to put them in… right? Instead, it became a consumable resource that players could spend money on to acquire more tokens if they run out.
Returning to Lost Crown, as a reward for completing some of the harder and optional platforming challenges, it was possible to find more memory shards/screenshot charges. In theory, this sounds acceptable, but this means the game’s challenges and reward system are tied to an accessibility option. If someone doesn’t use the feature, tying a challenge’s reward to it feels like a slap in the face for someone who just did all that and is not getting rewarded for their effort.
Accessibility should not be something that is “consumable” or a resource, as it should always be something available if someone needs to use it. To that point, if someone doesn’t want to use it or doesn’t need it, the game shouldn’t be balanced or built with it in mind. For an expert metroidvania fan of Prince of Persia, or an expert fighting game fan for Mortal Kombat, these options mean nothing to them; they’re not going to need them to play. However, for someone who genuinely would need or want them to enjoy the game, tying them to a resource isn’t right. Imagine for a second if a game requires the player to spend experience to turn on colorblind mode or must play far enough to unlock subtitles and the outcry it would get from accessibility advocates.
When Accessibility Works
If your game’s design is being balanced under the assumption that people can just use an accessibility feature to “fix” any problems, you’re going to find people quitting your game out of frustration. They may not know that the option exists, or feel that the game is not providing them with a carefully crafted experience. The cases when I had to use an assist feature or accessibility option to finish a game did not make me appreciate their inclusion but made me wonder just how many ended up quitting the game before they even knew about those options.
With Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, while the game may have been accessible with this feature, it was certainly not accessible in terms of its pacing and level design — a topic way too long to get into for this piece. While I haven’t played it yet, the accessibility features that were created for The Last of Us 2 allowing someone to fully tailor the entire gameplay experience in terms of difficulty, not just blanket “easy, medium, or hard” modes was a great option and part of the other features in The Lost Crown.
Sadly, no matter how good the memory shard system is, when more than half the playerbase on a platform don’t give your game more than hour of their time, it’s not fixing the other issues with the game. (source Author)
Remember, if someone finds your game bad, annoying, or poorly designed, no amount of accessibility or approachability options is going to save it, nor is there a perfect itemized checklist of all options that fit every game. Accessibility and approachability work best when they are built on top of a balanced game as a way to open it up for more people to enjoy. This requires the designer to understand who the market is for their game, and at the same time, what pain points or frustrations exist for newcomers.
It’s not about “dumbing down” your game but allowing someone who is the grandmaster of games to enjoy your title their way, and someone who struggles with it to enjoy it how they want to play. However, treating accessibility and approachability options as duct tape for your game’s design will lead to more problems and will often make you miss the inherent issues or frustrations with your game that create churn. Remember, it’s up to you to provide a well-designed title for someone to play; not give them the choice to try and fix it on their own.
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