Steam is adding screen reader support and other accessibility tools

Valve is introducing accessibility features for players with disabilities successful its latest beta for Steam Big Picture Mode and SteamOS. The features — listed successful afloat and explained here — include options to modify the Steam UI, similar a precocious opposition mode, arsenic good arsenic a built-in surface scholar for SteamOS.

In its post, Valve describes the features arsenic “just the archetypal accessibility features we’re making available.” For present players connected some Big Picture Mode and SteamOS volition get:

• A scaling slider for substance size
• High-contrast mode to marque buttons and substance much visible
• A “reduce motion” toggle that disables immoderate animation and surface modulation effects

SteamOS devices (at this point, the Steam Deck and Lenovo Legion Go S) tin besides find:

• A surface scholar with adjustable pitch, volume, and speechmaking rate, enabled and disabled either done settings oregon with a two-button shortcut
• A colour filter that affects some the Steam UI and immoderate games you’re playing — you tin take betwixt grayscale, inverted show brightness, oregon inverted show colors

The features are disposable connected a caller Accessibility tab successful the settings, seen beneath for SteamOS.

Earlier this period Valve besides started letting Steam users filter games by accessibility enactment — including immoderate options akin to the ones above, arsenic good arsenic adjustable trouble and speech-to-text oregon text-to-speech chat. It’s encouraging players with disabilities to suggest much features successful a treatment thread (a mono audio toggle is looking popular.) And for anyone who doesn’t request these features, portion I haven’t been capable to effort the beta yet, it sounds similar mightiness each beryllium getting a bare-bones cosmopolitan Kurosawa mode.