The battle royale world of Fortnite has been a turbulent one recently. There’s a load of new content coming endlessly with exciting collaborations and seasonal events, but there has also been some questionable business decisions such as V-Bucks price hikes that upset parts of the fandom. Once again though, there’s uproar going on in the community, and this time it relates to accessibility.
There’s a setting within Fortnite that allows players to visualize sound effects, so when there’s an audio prompt in the sound mix it gets reflected on screen with a visual representation of the sound. This acts as an on-screen compass to point out where sounds are coming from for deaf and hard of hearing gamers, but it’s a popular option for most other Fortnite players too.
One user in a now-deleted post on social media suggested that this feature should be nerfed in future, in case it’s offering an advantage to those who use it, and the Senior Community Manager at Fortnite responded with an eyes emoji. Whilst this is not a confirmation in any way, it does indicate that the Fortnite team might at least be considering changes to the feature. This prospect is not being met well by fans.
In the deleted original post that the Fortnite employee responded to, it’s said that that this feature could be nerfed by forcing mono audio on those who enable the visualize sound effects option, and/or reduce the range that these users can hear audio sources. However, doing so would also reduce the audio quality for those who rely on the setting for accessibility purposes.
Whilst it is true that many who don’t have accessibility requirements use the audio visualization feature, it doesn’t seem to be particularly advantageous in-game, especially when the setting is available to all players on all platforms. The prospect of nerfing this feature is thus being called “ableist” by some on social media, as it could ultimately give disabled gamers a lesser experience than those with stereo hearing abilities.
Epic Games has yet to respond to this situation, and we’ll be sure to update this article when we do. Check back often to GameObserver for the latest Fortnite news and updates, including developments on this story.
