I DON’T think every game is for every person, nor should they be, but I do think that every game should at least be playable by every person.
I don’t like sports games at all, and I have no interest in playing them, so I don’t bother picking up the latest EA FC game when it comes out.
But the reason I don’t play sports games isn’t because I can’t, but because I don’t want to. It’s a matter of taste, not ability.
So what if there’s a game that I want to play, but can’t, because of motor issues or developmental disorders that make it difficult to complete certain actions?
Elden Ring is one of these games — I’m interested in the game, the lore, the mechanics, and the gorgeous world that From Software has created.
But I don’t have the dexterity in my hands to complete some of the more complex manoeuvres required to play the game, let alone finish it.
I also struggle due to other disorders to learn and remember enemy patterns, ultimately making a game like Elden Ring effectively impossible on multiple fronts.
There are a number of ways to solve and overcome these problems, through the use of external devices and additional software, but the best way is to design accessibility options into the game itself.
Many games have options like this, that allow you to slow down game speed to give you more time to react, or offer increased invincibility frames when dodging, or a larger window for parrying.
Some games even have a god mode that makes it impossible to take damage or die at all.
But what many of these options have in common is that they make the game easier for people who aren’t disabled, should they choose to use those options.
Increasing the player’s health and damage output, or decreasing the power and health of enemies, makes the game easier, sure, but it also provides more wiggle room for players who can’t react quite as fast.
They might get hit twice as much as players who are able to react more quickly, but they also last for twice as long.
Offering these easier difficulty options makes things easier for the average person, but for a disabled person, they may simply make things possible at all.
The designers of these brilliant games, I believe, are capable of providing a challenge that is still something to overcome for players who need a little extra help, even if it makes things easier for those who don’t.
That’s what people are arguing for when they say that all games should have an easy mode: not something to make the game easy for them, but to offer the same level of challenge other players face, just catered to their abilities.
Difficulty and accessibility are often argued to be different things, but it’s a bit of a fingers and thumbs scenario.
Not all accessibility options make things easier, but all easier difficulty settings make things more accessible.
And that’s not to say that slapping an easy mode into Dark Souls will suddenly fix every inaccessible game design choice that From Software built into it.
But it will open the game up to millions more players, players that can share the experience of overcoming and succeeding against a challenge, rather than trying, failing, and giving up because their bodies can’t keep up.
It’s not a one-stop solution, but it should be a part of the tool chest that game designers use to make their games more accessible, alongside subtitle, colourblind, audio description, and UI size options.
This article is part of a two part discussion. To read the other side of the story check out why games don’t need an easy mode.
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