The Breaking Barriers update for the game Dead Cells has a lot to celebrate. For me the thing most worth highlighting is their framing of “as we intended.”
Some of the pushback we get when designing and developing accessible things is that it’s compromising the vision. Motion Twin games studio says their vision is that the game is “tough but fair” for all players. They frame these changes to options, adjustments, and customisations as letting more people “enjoy Dead Cells as we intended.” So great!
They made these changes because “We realised that this tough but fair experience is just unattainable for some players for a whole range of reasons.” Hats off to them for noticing this and doing something about it.
Another thing to celebrate is that they did testing with people with disabilities at AbleGamers. This is an excellent way to get high qaulity and very useful feedback on changes we make.