Over time, Blizzard has included a bunch of updates for its first-person shooter game Overwatch to make it more accessible. The latest update, which just landed on the game’s Public Test Realm (PTR), allows players to enable subtitles which should make life easier for everyone playing without a sound.
In a 1.38 PTR patch, the new option on the game’s sound settings allows players to enable subtitles. According to Blizzard, this was created in order to “improve the gameplay experience for players that are deaf or hard of hearing”. The new feature is fairly simple – it will show text notifications in the bottom middle section of a player’s screen. Players will be able to choose what notifications do they want to see, including flavor voice lines and critical gameplay elements such as ultimate usage and other.
It’s worth noting that the new feature won’t be enabled by default. Currently, in testing servers, there are plenty of trolls spamming character voice lines in order to flood the window, so it’s safe to assume that a similar thing will happen in the live game. However, you may turn these off if you select an option to show subtitles for just Critical Gameplay.
It’s not the first time Blizzard included more accessibility options to Overwatch. In 2018 Overwatch received colorblind feature that players could set according to their needs. It’s nice to see that Blizzard is not abandoning players with disabilities. Kudos to that!
