Marvel's Spider-Man 2 accessibility verdict
Oct. 21, 2023Insomniac Games delivers broad accessibility support but, depending on your disability, you may want to wait until December
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Steve Saylor is a legally-blind gamer who has dedicated his life to trying to improve video games for everyone. Over the years, Steve has consulted with major game developers like EA, Ubisoft, and Naughty Dog to help push video game accessibility forward, and hosts aYouTube channelwhere he explores the accessibility options in the latest new releases.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 accessibility at launch
With that being said, I do want to talk about what accessibility is in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 today, knowing that there’s still more to come. Most of the accessibility in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is primarily a culmination of all the accessibility Insomniac has done in its previous Spider-Man games andRatchet & Clank: Rift Apart. So if you are familiar with those games and their accessibility options, you will be comfortable with what’s here.
For deaf/hard of hearing players, sadly again will have to wait to get full captions which will provide captions for non-speaking dialogue as well as sound effects and music cues. But at launch, there are customizable subtitles to adjust text size, speaker tag, background, background opacity, and text color. They even have a cute little Spider-Man head icon to tell you whether it’s Peter or Miles talking while they are in their spidey suits.
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For Motor disabled players, Insomniac has introduced two new features that I think benefit everyone and that’s in regards to combat. The previous Spider-Man games have been called very button-bashy, in terms of how much you are constantly hitting buttons when attacking or dodging enemies. To address that, Insomniac has added an option called Melee Mode that when enabled you can hold down on Square to do a single attack, a four combo move, or to continuously attack. That way you aren’t having to mash that button every time you want to hit someone. This allows you to focus on dodging enemies without interrupting your attacks.
Speaking of dodging you can also enable a similar option called Continuous Dodge when you hold down on Circle, you will constantly be dodging until you push another button to interrupt that dodge. To go even further, the studio borrowed an option from Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart that allows you to adjust the game’s speed so you can slow down combat to make the combat less frantic and give you more time to strategize your attack better. Believe me, those options came in handy for me in my playthrough, particularly towards the end of the game when enemies were coming at me so quickly that it was hard to keep up.
There is one major blocker that I do have to mention, and that’s in regards to a mini-game involving the trigger buttons on the PS5 DualSense controller. TheMarvel’s Spider-Man 2 Prowler Stashside quest involves finding hidden tech throughout New York City; when trying to scan the relevant areas, two vertical bars pop up on the screen with a horizontal gray bar in each and a yellow target. You have to subtly push down on both trigger buttons to try to line that yellow target to the horizontal gray bar and then hold it there for a few seconds to complete the mini-game. There is no way to skip them, simplify them, or an option in the settings to help with them. So if you have trouble with fine motor control or pushing down on the triggers is uncomfortable or painful, doing this task will be very difficult. This quest is skippable as its main purpose is to unlock Tech Gear points to level up and to try to 100% complete Spider-Man 2. However, this mini-game pops up twice near the end of the game and you can’t move forward in the story until you complete it.
Overall, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is good. It is one of thebest superhero gamesI’ve played. The story is compelling, has great emotional and fantastical moments. The characters are really great and stand out. It definitely lives up to Marvel’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales in so many ways. It’s also one of the rare games I personally was able to roll credits on. However, until that update in December, I don’t feel comfortable giving the game a recommendation until we see full accessibility support introduced. If any of what I mentioned doesn’t affect your disability then I would recommend the game now, otherwise, wait until December.
Steve Saylor is a writer, content creator, and thought leader on the drive towards greater accessibility in gaming. Steve has also consulted with video game developers like EA, Naughty Dog, and Ubisoft in an effort to push video game accessibility forward. For more insight and accessibility reviews, you should visit theSteve Saylor YouTube channel.
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