Elden Ring: Accessibility Without Losing Identity

Engineer Perspectives

To ensure broad representation, we paired a veteran Soulslike player with a newcomer. This allowed us to evaluate accessibility from both expert and beginner perspectives. Engineer A, a veteran of the Soulslike genre, used their deep understanding of FromSoftware’s design to identify barriers that could hinder even experienced players. Conversely, Engineer B, a newcomer, offered insights into the struggles of new players facing Elden Ring’s steep learning curve for the first time.

Engineer A: The Veteran Player

Engineer A’s extensive background with the Soulslike genre allowed them to identify late-game issues. Their contributions included improvements to gameplay objectives, complex moves, and under the surface communication methods. Highlights of their findings include:

• Enhanced Hint Systems: Elden Ring’s open-ended design allows players to explore in any direction, but this can often lead to situations where progress is gated by missing critical steps, such as activating a Great Rune. Providing concise, context-sensitive guidance would reduce the likelihood of players backtracking or becoming stuck. In some parts of the game, such as the Abyssal Woods, the developers provide subtle hints, like warnings about the Untouchables, to guide players. Expanding this feature to other difficult areas would be beneficial for players who feel lost or overwhelmed. To maintain immersion, this feature could be made optional in the accessibility settings, allowing players who prefer to discover everything organically to turn off these hints.
• Improving Message Context: Messages such as “You cannot proceed without more Great Runes” would have improved accessibility if they specified how many Great Runes are required. Additionally, players navigating Elden Ring’s open world might still be unsure where to search. The game could go a step further by offering a general hint, such as the region or direction where additional Great Runes might be found. This subtle guidance would allow players to make informed decisions without undermining the exploratory nature of the game.
• Control Refinements: Allowing complex mechanics, such as throw escapes or two-handed stance activation, to be mapped to single-input actions would enhance accessibility. This could also benefit actions like casting channel spells, such as Comet Azur, or executing charged weapon arts that require holding a button for the maximum effect. Simplifying these interactions into single-button inputs would reduce physical strain.
• Hidden Communications: Implementing captioning for Prattling Pate, inventory items that trigger verbal audio when used, would greatly improve accessibility for hearing-impaired players. Additionally, some character emotes in the game, such as “Casual Greeting”, provide a basic form of verbal communication. However, these voice lines are currently not captioned, leaving hearing-impaired users without access to this form of interaction. Adding captions for these vocal lines would ensure that all players can fully participate in these communication mechanics.

Engineer B: The Newcomer

Engineer B’s fresh perspective shed light on how overwhelming Elden Ring can be for players new to the Soulslike genre. Their contributions focused on providing clear guidance and reducing the cognitive load for new players. Their insights included:

• Guidance and Organization: In addition to the help offered on each menu, Introducing a centralized Help Menu section would streamline access to tutorials and system explanations, reducing the cognitive load on players. Further, a Journal System to track quests, story interactions, objectives, and multiplayer activities would ensure players are reminded of the tasks they were working on, the players they encountered, and the characters they were assisting in Elden Ring’s vast, open world.
• UI and Visual Accessibility: Text Scale options for menus would provide greater support for varied setups and vision levels. Additionally, offering an option for solid backgrounds for semi-transparent menus would enhance text readability. For hearing impaired players or ones situationally playing without audio, adding visual indicators for offscreen damage and attack directionality would improve situational awareness.
• Language and Clarity: Refining system messages with simpler, clearer phrasing would make mechanics more approachable. For instance, expanding messages like “This summoning pool is now functional” to include “Your world can now be joined through Multiplayer” would provide better supporting context of what the Summoning Pool does. Standardizing terminology in conjunction with plain language explanations would reduce potential confusion.
• Standardized Keyboard Navigation: Adopting established keyboard navigation patterns, such as using Enter for selection and Escape for backing out, would create a more intuitive and user-friendly interface for players using keyboards. With the current use of E and Q keys, it creates friction when typical controls aren’t working as expected. What would have been an intuitive action, now needs reference the non-standard key listed on screen.

Collaborative Insights

Despite their differing backgrounds, both engineers shared areas for improvement. Their collaborative findings focused on the systemic inconsistencies and barriers within Elden Ring. By combining these two perspectives, we captured a broad spectrum of player experiences. This approach allowed us to craft recommendations that honor Elden Ring’s identity while ensuring it becomes more welcoming to players of all backgrounds and abilities.

Our Insights Imagined

We took our visual suggestions to practice by mocking a redesign of an Elden Ring menu, one commonly accessed yet difficult to process, the Status Menu.

Our Mock-up Changes Explained:

• Increased the Font Size to a minimum of 30 pixels and Line Spacing to 1.5 times the Font Size for maximized legibility. Page Name, Character Name, Level, Section Headers, Menu Explanation, and Controls are larger, 36-60 pixels, to emphasize menu hierarchy.
• Reduced the Horizontal Spacing between labels and values for easier correlation.
• Reduced the opacity of the background image, to improve the Contrast of gray text to over 8:1 (previously 6.5:1). The background retains some of its opacity to remind the player of background gameplay without using solid black.
• Revised ‘Runes Needed‘ to ‘Runes Needed for Next Level’; although wordier it reminds the player of the levelling system requiring Runes.
• Added bars for visual representation of HP, FP, and Equip Load fractions to aid players with Dyscalculia. Partially filled bars such as Equip Load are stylized with a high contrast line break measuring 5.5:1 to legibly differentiate the current amount against the limit.
• Added Column Headers for Resistance, Attack Power and Defense sections. For instance, in the Resistance section, defining the left column as values granted by armor and the right column as the character’s total resistances.
• Added the Section Header ‘Spell Memory’ to help the player infer what Memory Slots are used for.
• Active yet empty Memory Slot icons possess a contrast of 3:2 (previously 1.5:1); inactive slots are lower contrast and foreshadow the maximum of twelve.
• Spell Memory Icon created for consistency by combining Sorcery and Incantation iconography for intuitive recollection of the game’s symbols.
• Swapped the positioning of Resistance and Spell Memory sections, for spatial balance and to reduce the amount of text in the third column.
• Reassigned Controls, such as Back to the standard Escape key, and matching other controls with an intuitive letter key; for instance H Key mapped to Help (previously G Key).
• Note: Additional Memory Slots and a Great Rune were added to our mock-up to account for additions to the Status menu as the game progresses.