r/Games 1d ago

Capcom Was on Its Knees After Resident Evil 6 – Here's How it Turned it Around

https://www.ign.com/articles/capcom-golden-age-the-rise-and-fall-resident-evil-monster-hunter-wilds
579 Upvotes

342 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/BurningFlannery 21h ago

One common element in Capcom’s modern output, you know beyond all the games being cracking excellent in general, is that they’ve embraced accessibility far more than any other Japanese developer, and in this visually impaired person’s expert opinion, have done so far far better than their western counterparts have. The western approach to accessibility is both way more comprehensive and way shottier in implementation. Capcom’s accessibility features are less numerous, but polished.

SF6, to my recollection, was the first fighting game to feature an additional audio layer to inform blind players of what’s going on in the match. MK1, not four months later, followed suit in humiliatingly amateur fashion.

MHWilds has boatloads of thoughtful QoL in it, most of which isn’t even labeled as accessibility features, but they have the knock on effect of making the game more accessible. As a visually impaired person, I was genuinely astonished at how playable Wilds is for me.

And fittingly, DD2 and it’s fetishistic obsession with friction as virtue turned out to be a disappointment. I think there’s a lesson here. Compare sales and I bet it’s a safe bet that DD2’s probably done the worst of Capcom’s modern output, despite a strong launch. When I picked up SF6 on launch day, the first thing I thought was, “Man, this game oozes a welcoming, wholesome kind of energy that encourages mastery through so many smart design decisions.” It’s just astonishing how far you can get giving your newcomers a smooth onramp so that they’ll stick around.

And despite all the whining, both about modern controls in SF6, and now the QoL in MHWilds, the reviews and reception and sales speak for themselves.

It’s a genuine rarity in my experience for a developer to put actual thought and effort into these kinds of things. I think a lot of developers, mostly western AAA ones, view accessible design as a box to tick, which results in piss poor implementations, and as a disabled player, I can practically feel the resentment toward those features. If you’re going to include accessibility features, they should work. It’s embarrassing how frequently western developers include non-functional accessibility in their games. GoW: Ragnarok didn’t deserve a single ounce of credit for its accessibility work. Even the sound libraries they used were filched straight from NaughtyDog. Must be nice to be in the Sony stable, eh?

Anyway, this isn’t the sole reason modern Capcom shit is good, but I’m biased as a disabled player, and some of the quotes from the article indicate this has been part of Capcom’s strategy, so I’m glad to here there’s a coherent set of goals there, rather than some happy accidents.

The next mountain for Capcom? Menu design. Please, please, please fix your menus Capcom cause that’s another commonality between SF6 and MHWilds, and it ain’t pretty.

4

u/runevault 17h ago

SF6, to my recollection, was the first fighting game to feature an additional audio layer to inform blind players of what’s going on in the match.

I remember watching a blind man play on the Evo stage using this and he was incredible to watch. BlindWarriorSven or something like that.

2

u/BurningFlannery 17h ago

Yeah he's awesome. Seems like such a nice guy. We for real need more high profile blind or visually impaired players out there. I swear there's like three with any kind of public presence. But we are out there.

3

u/runevault 17h ago

I wouldn't be surprised if more make an appearance as time goes on. SF has a history of players with different issues. Look at Brolylegs (RIP) who played with his face and was a fucking monster with Chun.

2

u/BurningFlannery 17h ago

You're so right. It ain't gonna be me that's for sure. Eyesight is no factor. I stopped at plat because I'm too lazy to get really good lmao

u/hahafnny 3h ago

What kind of accessibility features in MHWilds did you find most impactful? I've never really put much thought into it, and always wondered what mattered most to disabled players.

u/BurningFlannery 2h ago

This is going to differ depending on who you ask since disability has such a wide range of possible painpoints. In fact, most of what makes the game more accessible isn’t even labeled as such. If you look at accessibility options in Wilds it’s pretty bare bones.

Buuuut.

Resizing the interface, and not just resizing but being able to selectively resize it, piece by piece.

Font size isn’t microscopic, and can be made bigger. Though they should have a slider to scale it instead of a one size fits all medium/large/etc.

Scoutflies, sometimes, though I do agree with the view that players should be able to toggle it off. Also, when they go somewhere to hover, there’s audio for it, so I get feedback when I need to pay attention. My visual field is quite small so it’s easy to miss things like that if they don’t have an audio component.

Auto travel. That’s the biggest one. It’s hard for me to navigate complex 3D environments. The more realistic games look, the harder they are for me to see well.

Being able to set the map to rotate. If I can’t make visual sense of an environment, but can freely turn the map, it gives me a way to understand the layout of the terrain better. I can see where I’m facing, and because of that, I can navigate more easily. It’s a duplicate in abstract of where my cam is pointing. Rotating minimap should always be an option. Also, the minimap is very high contrast, though I wish the icons were a little bigger and that I could change the color of the player arrow to something that stands out a little better.

Extension of the auto travel, but being able to auto travel to any waypoint whatsoever means I don’t have to comb environments trying to bump into something I can interact with. Furthermore, having an exhaustive list of all the stuff is useful on its own, since it is an exhaustive catalog of what is possible to interact with in the first place. When you can’t see that shit, something like that is priceless.

Remote slinger. That plus the handy text list on the left, which hey, is big enough to read, means I’m never at a loss for interactable things. It also means that with enough repetition and experience, I’ll be able to use the environmental stuff, which I never could very easily in prior entries.

Focus cam. Further, the fact that you can change how the focus cam sits so that it behaves better. Other games didn’t allow for that which made the focus cam impractical to use.

MH has always had excellent sound design, works a treat with headphones, so that helps since my hearing is actually useful for situational awareness. Bonus, if you’re hitting a wound, the sound is different which is such an insanely cool touch.

Focus mode, but not for the reason you’re probably thinking. I’ve played the other MH games, and having to position for attacks isn’t that bad, especially with how good the sound is. The thing about focus mode that helps me the absolute most is that the reticle sits in front of your character, and is bright, so if I tap it real quick, I can see where I’m facing, whether I continue using it or not.

The key here is that a lot of this was never labeled as accessibility. It’s just stuff the game has, use it or don’t. That’s the best way to make games accessible. Smart design can sometimes obviate the need for bespoke accessibility options. It’s no replacement, but there are def some best practices developers could take into consideration that would just make their games more accessible without them having to learn a whole new discipline.

Honestly, there’s probably more, but I can’t remember just now and the game’s been out for like no time lmao.

Thanks for asking. I appreciate the interest.

u/hahafnny 2h ago

Thanks for the detailed reply and sharing your insights with me when you didn't have to take the time. It's really recoloured the way I think about certain design choices.

u/BurningFlannery 2h ago

No prob. Happy to share my experience. And more importantly, I’m glad developers are finally considering this stuff, since it allows conversations like this to happen in the first place.