The AbleGamers Charity has announced its “Mainstream and Indie Accessible Games of the Year.” The charity gave top honors to Rocket League and MLB 15: The Show for being the most accessible for gamers living with disabilities.
Rocket League developer Psyonix was praised for working with focus groups and gamers of different abilities to make sure as many people as possible could enjoy its game. It allows players to remap controls in any way and includes a feature that AbleGamers says is one of the most interesting they’ve ever seen in a racing game.
In Rocket League, you can map the driving directly to the mouse. All you have to do to drive is move your mouse in the direction you want to go–AbleGamers notes that you can play the entire game using only the mouse. The charity admired its use of colorblind-friendly colors, and the visual indicators and tutorials were applauded for making it easy to learn for gamers with cognitive disabilities.
Psyonix design director Corey Davis said the team is going to continue working on more accessibility options in the future.
“Our team is thrilled that a wider group of players are finding success with Rocket League in a variety of ways, and it’s humbling to be associated with AbleGamers’ great efforts in the industry,” said Davis. “Going forward, we will continue to strive for more ‘ease of use’ solutions in Rocket League’s future.”
MLB 15: The Show was awarded Mainstream Accessible Game of the Year and was commended for improving its accessible game design year after year. It has seven different difficulty levels including a dynamic one that changes based on how well you’re playing. It was also complimented for its visual accessibility, not requiring sound to play, and letting gamers choose which positions they’re in control of.
AbleGamers says there were a lot of advancements made in 2015 to help gamers with disabilities have better experiences. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were both commended for featuring entire sections of accessibility options. The Xbox One Elite controller and Steam Controller were used as examples of advancements in accessible hardware.
However, AbleGamers says there were some mainstream games that “failed in every regard” and more game developers need to work at making games accessible.
Last year, GameSpot talked to someone who found a solution that would allow their disabled father to play Skyrim.