Forza Motorsport is arriving later this year with all the usual improvements in visual immersion and fidelity you’d expect from the latest Forza. But it’s also going to let players who are blind or have low vision race around tracks by listening for clever audio cues making Forza Motorsport the most accessible Forza title ever created.
Forza has a complex soundscape, including audio for tires, engines, and other objects, so Turn 10 had to find sounds that wouldn’t conflict. After experimenting with sounds like wind rushing past you to indicate where you are on a track, the team found this was confusing and opted for something far more simpler.
How does the player prepare for a turn?
The system adds in audio cues and voiceovers. You might approach a turn and hear “left three,” which means it’s a left turn and medium sharpness. The callouts will be familiar to anyone who has played rally games like Colin McRae or its modern DiRT equivalent.
Three countdown sounds will help blind players prepare for these turns, and the panning of the car engine will head in a direction so you move the car on a controller to re-center the car engine in your stereo field. It helps you find the racing line again and get back on it. Track limit sounds will beep to let you know how close you are to the edge of the track, and these will increase in pitch as you get closer to the track limits.
Are the sounds customizable?
All of the sounds are unique and customizable, so they can suit a wide range of needs. The game has a very large suite of various audio cues that build up the blind driving assist system. “It also has the ability to change the volume and pitch of each of those audio cues, and players can try them out in the settings menu prior to jumping into the game. That should help with any potential confusion, as sounds can be manually changed here.
Is there a learning curve for blind and partially sighted gamers?
With a number of audio cues to learn, there’s obviously a learning curve. Players will have to learn the cues for track limits, deceleration, turn countdowns, and even the particular audio beeps that sound if your car is facing the wrong way.
Does this game required specialized hardware?
All of the audio cues are available to sighted players, too, and don’t require any special hardware.
Are there any other features to assist the blind and low vision gamer?
Blind and low-vision players will also get feedback through haptics on the controller so they can feel when the ground surface changes to grass.
What are the range of accessibility features?
Forza Motorsport will have a range of accessibility features such as screen narration, one-touch driving, dynamic audio descriptions, and text-to-speech and speech-to-text features. There are also colourblind modes, filters, subtitles, text scaling, and controller remapping to make the game as flexible as possible.
Where can we play the game?
Forza Motorsport is coming this year to Xbox Series X / S consoles, PC, and Xbox Cloud Gaming.
