Accessibility Options

Halloulle

It comes up time and time again: there are elements in this game that make it partly unplayable for some people. Elements that are not down to "if you choose to play a horror-themed game, there are gonna be horror elements". BHVR has done a great job improving the accessibility e.g for those with impaired hearing and people with color blindness. - But there are still things, that could be improved.

Doctor's ability comes up in connection with epilepsy, Dredge's Nightfall is a trigger for all kinds of things, Plague comes up most often in connection with emetophobia but it's also really just a very common and natural human reaction to want to puke when you see someone else puke (similar to how people yawn when they see someone else yawn) and I also briefly saw Arachnophobia come up when Toba landing was released.

To this list I would like to add Clown's bottles - from personal experience. The distorted blur-effect makes me feel as though I've been looking at my nose crossed eyes; it makes me very nauseous and to avoid a headache the best thing I can do is to just stop in game right then and there and look away from the screen. This makes playing against a Clown rather difficult, as you can probably imagine.

You could argue getting phobias triggered is at your own risk when you play a game, though bhvr seemed like a dev-team that values inclusion and rather not shrug and say "well, guess that's your problem". Same goes for people with PTSD and similar stuff going on playing "at their own risk". - Why do I think the "your problem" / "at your own risk" are also rather cheap excuses by those who rather not make an effort for inclusion? Because most of these things can be addressed easily enough by changing the sound and visual cues to something that looks and/or sounds different but serves the same purpose (as an option, of course; the main difference will be the aesthetic and level of immersion).

As for Doctor the main purpose is distraction and visual obstruction; this is also possible with less flickery images / different visual effects.

Dredges nightfall theme can easily be changed to something that isn't triggering while still being a distracting sound that drowns out other audible cues.

Plagues puke audiovisual effects can easily be replaced by a different sound and different image texture (the infamous rainbows and glitter-sound)

Clown's bottles are supposed to obstruct your view; an increased blurriness would serve the same purpose

Do you have other elements in the game that you think need an accessibility toggle? If so: please add. I think it's important to keep these things in the discussion so that they will be addressed at some point.

Xernoton

I'm not an expert on these things but can you completely avoid triggering PTSD in a horror game? If it is possible, then that should be looked into.

But PTSD could also be triggered by sounds such as a chainsaw or whatever else. I am not sure how that could be completely avoided without changing the game in its core. For Dredge in particular there isn't much you can do to avoid it completely. Even the darkness might be enough to trigger it in some people. The screams could probably be changed as an accessibility option but it wouldn't be easy to achieve similar results. The noise is meant to be unsettling and obstructing. If they can come up with something, then it would be nice to see that.

Increasing the blurriness of Clown's bottles would risk people to become motion sick. I think there isn't much you can change about that without nerfing him.

For Doctor there probably is a way to do something. Although I am not sure how you would achieve the same results. It wouldn't make sense for the visuals to be not flashy at all but BHVR could probably come up with something that might work, although I can't think of something on the spot.

Something else I'd like to see is some kind of help for killers with hearing impairments. This could be something as simple as an icon that shows you that there is generator noise, survivor grunts or footsteps. Completely undirectional and maybe only in close proximity but it would help tremendously.

Interocitor

In addition to already having to use shadowborn every match to combat motion sickness, I have to use lightborn every match I play as killer since the flashlight blind animation is a migraine trigger for me. I don't know why there needs to be a very bright flashing/pulsating strobe effect that takes up the whole screen in a game that is often dark. It could easily be replaced with a full black or grey screen or even a static image for the same duration of time so flashlights wouldn't be nerfed. A toggle option in the menu to decide between the strobe effect or a black screen would be much appreciated.

In terms of other photosensitivity issues, there are also very fast flashing lights in some Haddonfield houses that don't serve much purpose except to annoy both survivors and killers. I'm not sure if this is worse because I play with 120 fps but that setting will soon be regularly available since it's on the PTB.