Veilguard Details Accessibility features

Important takeaways

• Dragon Age: The Veilguard offers 55 accessibility features for different categories such as visual, auditory, controls and gameplay.
• Players can customize battle settings, including disabling quick time events and adjusting enemy vulnerabilities.
• The game offers extensive options for controller settings, visual settings and various accessibility features for a more inclusive gaming experience.

EA has released tons of information about Dragon Age: The Veilguards accessibility features. The upcoming fourth major installment in the series, Dragon Age: The Veilguard has a huge list of features that allow players of all types to dive in, from battle customization to video and audio settings.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard will launch on October 31st, almost 10 full years after the arrival of its predecessor, Dragon Age: Inquisition. With the recent revelation of Dragon Age: The Veilguard's ESRB rated M for Mature, fans of the series now have an age rating for the game, and publisher EA wants to make clear how much work has gone into making the game accessible to adult players from all walks of life.

As published on the official EA website, the game features 55 different accessibility options spread across the visual, auditory, controls, and gameplay categories. While information released earlier this month showed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard comes with five default difficulty settings, the game's accessibility options show the level of detail that developer BioWare put into customizing it to suit players of all kinds of skill levels, abilities, and preferences. Players will be free to disable quick-time events, and additional optional combat features such as Aim Assist, Aim Snap, and Combat Timing have been included to help players who could use some help in both the ranged and melee fields. Additionally, there will be adjustable levels of enemies' vulnerabilities and resistances to shorten fights or stretch them out. And for those who just want to revel in the next chapter of Dragon Age story, the easiest difficulty even has an option that prevents the player character from dying in battle altogether.

Players will also have many options to customize their controller settings, providing different ways to control Veilguard protagonist The Rook. Basic controls can be remapped as the player sees fit, and motion controls can be switched between either of the analog sticks. The controller setup will also provide the ability to invert the X and Y axes, as well as allow players to set dead zones for sticks and trigger buttons, adding more levels of controller sensitivity customization.

When it comes to visual settings, players will have many options to help them enjoy the aesthetic appeal The craftsmans different locations and characters. Features like motion blur and camera shake, while emphasizing action segments, can be turned off for players sensitive to such changes in their field of view. There are plenty of HUD options, too, including one that places a dot in the center of the screen to make aiming easier, and eight different HUD elements can be turned on or off individually.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard accessibility features

Visual

• Subtitles can be set to Never, Conversation Only (excludes ambient NPC dialogue), or Always (all audible dialogue). By design, captions are embedded in subtitles to convey non-verbal sounds that advance the story or add additional context to certain stories and spoken words.
• Advanced subtitle options are available, where size can be adjusted between three options, speaker names can be turned on/off, background opacity can be scaled from 0% to 100%, and name colors can be adjusted for Rook and NPC.
• UI Text has two size options and uses a simple font.
• Full screen color blind filters are available for Protanopia, Deuteranopia and Tritanopia.
• Persistent Dot is available to display a small dot in the center of the screen.
• Hiding HUD Elements is available for Objective Tracker, Mini Map, Combat Text, Advanced Combat Text, Player Health and Abilities.
• Melee threat indicator provides a halo around the player character's head to warn of incoming melee attacks.
• The Ranged Threat Indicator provides a visual line to show the direction of incoming ranged attacks.
• Visual cues are present during combat and exploration, with no game-critical information needed to progress being conveyed solely through sound. See Customizable Exploration Presets for more.
• Motion blur can be turned on/off.
• Camera shake can be set between 0 (Off) and 100 (Max). Does not extend to film.
• Depth of field can be set to On for movies only, On for games only, On for both, or Off. Being On causes some parts of the scene to be in focus and others to be out of focus.
• Vignette can be turned on/off. Being On creates a subtle darkening of the image towards the edge of the screen during movies and games to enhance the atmosphere of the scenes.
• Low health screen effect can be turned on/off. Being On creates a blurry, desaturated effect across the screen during gameplay to emphasize low health.

Audio

• Volume controls for Global, Music, Speech, Sound Effects, Ambient and Menu.
• Speaker type for Wide Dynamic, Narrow Dynamic, Night Mode and Headphones.
• 3D sound is available. Requires compatible hardware.
• Mono Audio is available along with a mono audio routing option between left and right outputs.
• Availability SFX is available and has a volume control. Audio cues provide additional feedback for certain visual mechanics. Includes an incoming attack indicator, target lock and conversation wheel.
• Glint Ping SFX is available where spatialized SFX will play on object locations when UP on the d-pad is pressed. Note: Depending on the exploration preset selected, players may need to adjust the item glimmer visibility and item marker visibility settings to pulse (short) for this feature to work.

Controls

• Input remapping for basic game controls. Motion actions can only be remapped between analog sticks.
• Invert X and Y axis can be adjusted individually for both controller and mouse.
• Vertical and horizontal sensitivity controls for both cameras and aiming.
• Switch between left and right sticks for movement (left) and look (right).
• Stick Deadzones controls for the Look and Movement sticks.
• Trigger Deadzone slider for triggers on controllers.
• Vibration intensity controls for Global, Gameplay, Environment and Cinematic.
• Disable UI Hold Inputs can be set to Hold or Press. When Tap is selected, various UI interactions that require an input to be held for a certain period of time can be activated with a single tap instead. Does not apply to game actions.
• Ability Wheel Controller activation type can be set to Hold or Tap. When set to Press, the ability wheel will remain on screen without requiring any sustained input.
• Blocking and aiming require a sustained hold. Aim without hold is possible if the persistent dot is enabled, which can be used as an alternative to the aim-down reticle.
• No QTES (quick time events) are present by design.
• Quick input sequences are available for certain attack combos during melee, if used.
• Simultaneous inputs are available for ultimate ability, or if you use the ability's shortcut menu.
• Quick and precise timing is not required for progression. Finishers, which are optional and speed up the end of combat, may require faster reactions.
• Combat Assists are available in Combat Presets to further simplify inputs during combat. Includes Aim Assist, Aim Snap, Combat Timing and more.

Gameplay

• Choose between Storyteller, Keeper, Adventure, Underdog, Nightmare or Custom presets:
• Vision assistance can be set to Off, Low, Medium and High.
• Aim Snap can be toggled on/off to lock onto targets.
• Prevent Death can be turned on/off. Only available in the Storyteller preset.
• Enemy Damage has five options to adjust the strength of incoming attacks.
• Enemy Health has five options to adjust the amount of enemy health.
• Enemy Aggression has five options to adjust how aggressive enemies are during battle by changing how often they attack and how hard they are to stagger.
• Enemy Resistances have three options to adjust how much enemies can resist incoming damage. However, this will not affect the natural resistance that some enemies have based on their faction.
• Enemy Vulnerability has three options to adjust how weak enemies are to incoming damage. However, this will not affect the natural weaknesses that some enemies have based on their faction.
• Combat Timing has three options for adjusting the timing windows to perform Dodge, Parry, and Perfect Defend actions.
• Choose from presets of No Assists, Pulse Only, Standard, Directed or Custom:
• Object Glimpse Visibility can be set to Off, Pulse (Short), Pulse (Long), Always to change the visibility of the glimmer highlight on interactable objects.
• Object Glimpse Distance can be set to near, default, and far to change the distance at which glimmer highlights on interactive objects will appear.
• Lens marker visibility can be set to Off, Pulse (short), Pulse (long) and Always to change the visibility of lens markers.
• Waypoint visibility can be toggled on/off to toggle the visibility of navigation waypoints leading to your mission objective.
• A library is available for players to access at any time to help recall information. Here, players can browse the Codex to review stories and information discovered during progression, read about letters from companions and others within Missives, and refer to the glossary for explanations of terminology specific to Dragon Age Lore.
• Tutorials teach game mechanics as new inputs, skills, or actions appear.
• World maps and local maps are available for wayfinding and can be referenced at any time.
• Waypoint visibility can be turned on/off to aid progression.
• Target marker visibility can be adjusted between Off, Pulse (Short), Pulse (Long) and Always.
• Pauseable play is available by design.
• Saving is robust, where auto-saves are frequent and players can manually save at any time outside of combat, cutscenes, and dialogue sequences.