Steam Adding Accessibility Features Including “Adjustable Difficulty” To Store Pages

When it comes to PC retail gaming, Steam is not the market leader, but Valve is not on glory as it upgrades its platform to help gamers and purchase decisions.

This change is designed to allow gamers to identify accessibility options more quickly and evenly, eliminating speculation when games are added to the platform.

Steam plans to upgrade accessibility features soon

The change is planned over the course of this year, and Valve announced it in a SteamWorks developer post (via Gamingonlinux). Players will be able to see new accessibility features such as adjustable difficulty and narrated game menus.

New features include:

• Gameplay options, including adjustable difficulty

• Audio accessibility features including custom volume controls and narrated game menus

• Visual accessibility features including adjustable text sizes and color alternatives

• Input options that include speech to text in chat

Players can also use the Store’s search feature for certain accessibility features, such as searching for games that gamers can save at any time, narrated game menus, speeches to chat text, adjustable difficulty, and more.

For now, Valve said developers don’t need to follow these new features, but they “highly recommend it” as it makes it easier to connect the game to players looking for it.

This is generally a step in the right direction for the platform and game. With more and more people playing games these days, it is important for developers to understand that not everyone who plays the game is young or has full access to the faculty.

Hopefully, this is something Sony, Microsoft, and even Nintendo will follow suits. This is another step in helping gamers on the platform. Just this February, Valve launched a ban on steam games that allows players to view in-game ads.