The accessibility features in many games are evolving these days because of some forward-thinking developers, but it's still nowhere near common enough. Fortunately Quake is getting several helpful new features, just 26 years after its original release.
The latest version of Quake — to be specific, the official multi-platform "enhanced edition" — now has a high-contrast, more readable font for people with vision impairments (or who just can't be bothered with the stylized type), and a pair of chat-to-voice and vice versa options.
Users can set incoming chat to be spoken out loud in a synthesized voice, and for their own outgoing chat to be sent to the audio channel with a voice of their choosing. Incoming voice chat can also be automatically rendered as text. These options will be helpful for people with a variety of disabilities and preferences across all platforms.
Nothing that will protect the gamer from Shamblers, though. They're on their own there.
When Quake was made, it was a historic accomplishment, but accessibility options were barely even contemplated. It's still around and active, and part of being a leader in the games industry has to be taking forward strides in inclusivity and accessibility. Sure, it took a couple decades, but better late than never.
The diversity of the gaming public is easy to underestimate — and any options gamers can build to make their game easier to play will be appreciated by someone, and perhaps thousands or millions of people.
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