‘Overwatch 2’ Is More Approachable, But It Could Be A Lot More Accessible Too

by 24britishtvOct. 4, 2022, 11:20 a.m. 33
-

Overwatch 2 has a really solid onboarding experience for new players. I had the chance to check out the First Time User Experience. It seems like a great way to ease newcomers through the basics and start helping them understand the ins and outs of each hero.

Overwatch 2 is a complex game and it’s going to take a while for fresh players to learn many of the intricacies. This onboarding setup should help the game feel more approachable, instead of giving new players 35 heroes to choose from on the hero select screen and letting them figure it out.

In addition, the Overwatch 2 ping system works really well. It’s one of my favorite features in the game. It should be easier for you to communicate things like an enemy position, the location that you’re defending or where you want your teammates to group up. It increases the in-game communication options for those who don’t want to or can’t use a microphone. That’s a boon for accessibility.

But it seems like Overwatch 2 could still use more robust accessibility options. I understand that Team 4 is working on accessibility improvements. As things stand, though, the in-game accessibility menu only has a few tabs. You can adjust the camera shake levels, add subtitles (with a few options for the level of detail), change ally and enemy silhouette colors to address color blindness and turn on text-to-speech.

I’m not an expert on this front by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d like to see more studios, especially one with the resources that Blizzard has at its disposal, to include better accessibility features.

For one thing, it would be helpful to include directional arrows alongside subtitles in Overwatch 2 to indicate the source of the sound. Overwatch 2 could also do with enemy footstep indicators, similar to Fortnite. A while back, Overbuff suggested including a mono audio toggle.

A more customizable UI would be very helpful too. One of Blizzard’s major design goals for Overwatch 2 was to reduce clutter. The on-screen text looks smaller than it was in Overwatch 1, and the blocky font seems harder to read. Being able to adjust the sizes of text elements or even the font itself might help.

On the subject of the HUD, it would be enormously useful for some players (including me) to have indicators for teammates’ health and status on screen at all times. Displaying their Ultimate charge level there would help too. If you’ve ever used the in-game replay system or watched an Overwatch League match, you’ll understand what I mean. As someone who plays Support heroes a lot, knowing how much health each ally has at a glance would help a lot in terms of deciding who to heal first.

I do think these persistent health and status indicators could improve accessibility as well. Being able to see at a glance if a teammate is frozen, hacked, sleeping or burning without needing to hear them call that out could be beneficial to many. Kiriko players, in particular, could benefit given that she has the ability to cleanse teammates of various statuses.

In any case, here’s hoping we start to see significant accessibility improvements in Overwatch 2 soon.

For more news and updates on Overwatch 2 and other games, follow my Forbes blog! You'll get a weekly round-up email that includes everything I publish. You'd be doing me a solid, too — it's a great way to support me and my work at no cost. Apologies about the Heardle and Quordle posts if you don't care about those.

If you have any questions about Overwatch 2 or anything else I cover, please feel free to get in touch on Twitter.

-

Related Articles

HOT TRENDS

Amorim latest: Release clause, style of play & Liverpool stance

by 24britishtvMarch 29, 2024, 11 a.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Christopher Nolan to get knighthood as 'Oppenheimer' opens in Japan

by 24britishtvMarch 29, 2024, 11 a.m.2
HOT TRENDS

50 Cent Denies Daphne Joy Sexual & Physical Abuse Allegations

by 24britishtvMarch 29, 2024, 3 a.m.2
HOT TRENDS

50 Cent Denies Ex Daphne Joy’s Rape and Abuse Allegations

by 24britishtvMarch 29, 2024, 2 a.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Stephen Bear to pay £27k over illegal sex tape of Georgia Harrison

by 24britishtvMarch 29, 2024, 1 a.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter: The verdict - is it Yeehaw or No Ma'am?

by 24britishtvMarch 29, 2024, midnight2
HOT TRENDS

Everything to know on ITV courtroom drama The Twelve starring Sam Neill

by 24britishtvMarch 29, 2024, midnight2
HOT TRENDS

Everything to know on ITV courtroom drama The Twelve starring Sam Neill

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 11 p.m.2
HOT TRENDS

FA charges Tonali over alleged betting rules breaches

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 11 p.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Isle of Man closer to assisted dying legalisation

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 10 p.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Watch: Comedian Ed Gamble in the hot dog house over tour poster

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 10 p.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Fallen 'Crypto King' Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years for fraud

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 9:20 p.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Two people dead due to Storm Nelson

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 7 p.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Assisted dying: what are the laws in UK and what changes are proposed?

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 7 p.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Sam Bankman-Fried live updates: 'Crypto King' sentenced to 25 years prison

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 6 p.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Storm Nelson brings snow in Devon raising fears of Easter travel chaos

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 6 p.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Could assisted dying be coming to Scotland?

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 4 p.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Larry Lloyd | 1948 - 2024

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 4 p.m.2
HOT TRENDS

Happy Easter in a plastic egg •

by 24britishtvMarch 28, 2024, 4 p.m.2