Accessibility in games: adaptive controllers and the options that help everyone play

For a long time, playing video games assumed two steady hands, full sight and hearing and quick reflexes. Anyone who did not fit that mold was left out or relied on homemade adaptations. That changed a lot over the last decade: console makers released controllers designed for people with disabilities, and some studios started treating the accessibility menu as a core part of the game.

This article gathers what already exists, with examples checked against the sources at the end, and practical tips for anyone who wants to start using these features, for themselves, for a family member or for a friend in their gaming group.

Why accessibility matters to everyone

Accessibility is often linked only to permanent disabilities, but the same options help in temporary or everyday situations: an arm in a cast, tiredness after a long day, motion sickness from camera movement, a noisy room where you cannot hear the game. Subtitles, for example, are used by many people with perfect hearing. When a game offers more ways to be played, more people can play together.

Controllers built to adapt to the person

The first big milestone was the Xbox Adaptive Controller, announced by Microsoft in May 2018 and released on September 4 that year. It has two large buttons, about 10 centimeters across, that can be set to any function, and 19 3.5 mm ports on the back, one for each button, trigger or direction of the standard controller. Into these ports people plug external switches, such as foot, head or sip-and-puff buttons, building the controller the way their body allows.

The device was developed with organizations that work with disabled players, such as SpecialEffect and AbleGamers, and it works on Xbox and on Windows computers. It stores three configuration profiles, which helps when more than one person uses the same device.

Sony followed the same path with the Access controller for PlayStation 5, released worldwide on December 6, 2023. It can sit on a table, be rotated 360 degrees or be attached to a mount, has swappable button and stick caps in several shapes, and a toggle mode where one press keeps a button held without holding it, useful for accelerating in racing games, for example. Up to two Access controllers and one DualSense can work together as a single controller, which lets players share functions with someone else.

Both controllers follow the same idea: instead of the person adapting to the controller, the controller adapts to the person.

When the game itself makes the difference

Hardware solves part of the problem; the other part is in the software. The Last of Us Part II, released in 2020 by Naughty Dog, became a reference by shipping around 60 accessibility options. The game's official page describes, among others: full button remapping, including touchpad gestures; switching hold to toggle; a screen magnifier; a high contrast mode that mutes the environment's colors and highlights allies, enemies and items; text-to-speech for menus and text; audio cues for gaps, ledges and attacks; and navigation and traversal assistance that guide you along the story path and automate some jumps.

Today it is common to see accessibility menus in popular games. In Fortnite, for example, the accessibility tab in the settings has a colorblind mode and the option to visualize sound effects, which shows on screen where footsteps, gunshots and chests are coming from. It was first created for the mobile version and later reached the other platforms.

Types of options worth looking for in the menu

• Button remapping: move any command so the most-used actions sit where they are easiest to reach.
• Toggle instead of hold: one press turns it on, another turns it off, without keeping a finger down.
• Subtitles and text size: subtitles with a background, speaker names and bigger letters.
• Colorblind and high contrast modes: colors that stay easy to tell apart.
• Visible sounds: on-screen indicators for important sounds.
• Screen reading: menus and text read aloud.
• Camera comfort: reduce shake and motion blur and change the field of view, which helps people who get motion sick.
• Split difficulty: adjust only combat, only puzzles or only reaction time, without touching the rest.

Practical tips to get started

• Open the accessibility menu before your first match. Many games show these options on the very first screen; others hide them in Settings.
• Check the console or phone menu too. PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Android and iOS have system options (such as inverting colors, zooming the screen and remapping buttons) that apply to many games.
• Test one change at a time. That makes it easy to know what helped and to undo anything that made it worse.
• Before buying a game, look for its accessibility list. Some stores and publishers already post these lists on the game's page.
• If you are building an adapted controller, start with the basics. One or two well-placed switches usually do more than many badly placed ones.
• Use the shared-controller mode to play together. One person can handle the camera while the other moves the character.

What is still missing

Despite the progress, adaptive controllers are not cheap, and not every game offers a full menu. Features like screen reading remain rare outside menus, and many games still do not let you remap every button. The fastest way to improve is the same as always: studios listening to players, and players knowing what to ask for.

If you know someone who stopped playing because they thought they could not, it may be worth showing them this article. Sometimes the solution is two screens away, inside the options menu.