Disability in gameplay

 Gotta hand it to them...

As we consume and tell stories, the chief most goal is to open up to new worlds and experiences in a manner not so dissimilar to 'soul nurturing'; wherein the more our spirits are fed with new experiences- the richer we become as people. Discovering new approaches towards the way we see fundamentals of the world, being placed into the head of someone who's perspective we might never have seriously considered in the past, all fundamentals of successful impactful storytelling. Gaming can go a step further in many of these regards, allowing some aspect of the reality of the experience to become the gameplay features of the artwork, allowing experiences to play out in some small fashion for the players. Learning exactly how to exploit and build upon this is what makes Game Design such an endlessly challenging passion to lean into.

Disability is a basic and immutable part of life for a good chunk of people in the modern world, those who experience the everyday hustle and bustle and their lives from a different angle as their disabilities necessitate. It's a unique experience and way to live life that can be difficult, or even impossible, for anyone of different circumstances to really relate to; and capturing that experience, even within the space of a giant production video game, is probably too much of a tall order. However, disability, and the way we approach it, can make for interesting topics of consideration when it comes to building game mechanics. Sometimes reimagining basic gameplay systems we take for granted just for the sake of viewing them from a different lens, thus transforming an otherwise basic experience into something else entirely.

One such game, which got absolutely snubbed during the game awards and I will never forgive Geoff Keighley for it, is 'The Vale: Shadow of the Crown'. A standard named fantasy adventure guff about a young warrior woman having to survive in hostile lands, with the twist being that she was born with blindness. To encapsulate this, the game features very little visual information whatsoever, and conveys most of the game through 3D audio, performances and description. Most background images are swirling dark portraits infused with tiny specks of light whilst the player envisions the world they are traversing through their mind's eye. Of course it goes without saying that the game is fully blind accessible, and that it reimagines a lot of what we think we know about RPG games in order to establish it's premise.

Learning to anticipate the closeness of enemies by the sound of their grunts and charging screams, navigating through the brush by following the chirping of birds and the rustle of leaves, picking out calling voices in the market by homing in on the sounds of their barkers calling in customers. And, of course, inventory management without seeing an inventory. It truly does throw all the fundamentals on it's head by design and presents what would be rather standard as something else entirely. Whatsmore, the reliance on sound only elevates the level of audio immersion almost immeasurably. Intelligent sound engineering and solid vocal performances can connect with the other senses in an intangible manner, invoking otherwise static feelings and emotions as though rendered to hyper-realism by some giant AA A studio. (An igneous and unique experience that does a whole lot more for accessibility than poxxy 'Forza Motorsport' did; Geoff!)

But disability doesn't always have to be about what you make the player experience, sometimes it can be as simple as adding a character to Spiderman Miles Morales who happens to be deaf and communicates with American Sign Language. But if we wanna talk about deaf people, well... I'm going to have to bring up the real deaf game. Who remembers 'Quiet Man'? No! Don't go hiding yourself from the cringe of it all! Quiet Man was a game that was less interested about conveying experience of a man with deafness as it was about trying a unique gimmick to pump up the potential sales of a mediocre action fighter using a narrative device the developers couldn't even commit to for longer than a couple months.

Yes, 'Quiet Man' tells the story of a super hero level Deaf Man who beats up people in a live action cutscene narrative wherein the developers just pulled all sound in post. It's not like they shot the scenes to be understood without sound; they shot actual scenes with dialogue, they just muffled it and figured the 'mystery' of trying to piece together what the hell was even going on would make up for the crappy gameplay. Then, after an arbitrary timer ticked down, they just released a 'patch' that threw back in the sound so the already nonsensical narrative could make a tiny bit more sense. Kinda. Not really. The supernatural twist still comes out of nowhere and the game is altogether written as though by several arguing acid heads having a really crappy trip.

And of course we can hardly talk about disabilities in gaming with mentioning the countless limb deprived characters who populate the industry. Venom Snake from MGS V who replaced his hand with a bionic metal rocket fist- Billie Lurk from Dishonoured who boasts a dark magic whale-bone prosthetic, Sekiro from the game of the same name who has a special replacement arm that can be fitted with special attacks. At some point 'missing an arm' becomes more of a fashion statement than an actual liability. Heck, most gameplay protagonists just end up replacing the arm with something much cooler anyway! The protagonist of Hi-Fi Rush and all of his friends are missing a limb somewhere, just because. At least Johnny Silverhand's limb is a reminder of his service in the Corporate Wars, the first significant life jolt which spiralled him down the path of bitterness and 'f the system' rebellion. 

So yeah, certainly more could be done with the concept of disability in the world of gaming- heck, we're yet to receive a single game starring anyone in a wheelchair that I can think of, and I bet there's some really interesting gameplay scenario's that could be worked around that. (Which don't just involve tackling stairs, I mean. I'm talking actually interesting ideas- like a detective story with limited mobility or something!) But already some cool ideas have been broached (I love the way that games take the 'missing limb' trope and regularly turn it into a cool upgrade rather than an impediment) some arguably horrific examples (Deaf Oedipus Complex discount Leon Kennedy wasn't my favourite.) and some genuinely incredible ideas that deserve vindication. (Give 'The Vale' that award Geoff Keighley, you coward!) I'm excited to think about the future potential scenarios!