British and American Sign Language Coming to Forza Horizon 5 Post-Launch

Accessibility in gaming has been improving over the years, with developers doing their best to open up the scene for a wider audience. Forza Horizon 5’s developers Playground Games, have expressed their commitment to further improve the accessibility options within the game. Forza Horizon 5 has launched with several features that make it an accessible game, and Playground has stated that they have plans to add more soon. 

This information comes from a blog post on Xbox Wire where Playground Games Creative Director Mike Brown spoke on all the accessibility options that will be available in Forza Horizon 5 at launch. In this discussion, he elaborated how he and his team chose which features should be included right from the beginning. 

He also stated that the accessibility features were “created in partnership with players from the Gaming & Disability community.” These players were in discussion with Playground, sharing what barriers they faced when playing the game and how they could be managed. 

The current number of accessibility features is just a few of the whole list Playground Games wishes to incorporate in Forza Horizon 5. Brown said, “we’re constantly listening to the community to make Forza Horizon 5 an inclusive experience for everyone to enjoy.” 

Brown and the team have been busy integrating American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) support for the game cinematics. 

This sign language integration will bring a picture-in-picture display near the bottom of the screen showing an ASL/BSL interpreter. The blog post also showed a small video on what this feature will look like once implemented. The feature is currently being worked on and is a priority for Playground, but we only have “coming soon” as a release date. 

It’s great to see more developers joining the march for accessible gaming. This is a trend that needs to continue, and it’s a win-win. More people get to play amazing games, and developers and studios widen their fan bases.

About Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5 is the latest installment in the Forza series of racing simulator games. It is the fifth Forza Horizon title and the twelfth main installment in the Forza series. The game has been developed by Playground Games and published by Microsoft for the Xbox consoles and PC. 

Forza Horizon 5 is set in a fictional representation of Mexico. Players will race through various kinds of biomes in the game, and will have access to a number of professional racing cars. Several game modes allow players to play online against others, and “The Eliminator” battle royale mode has also made a return from Forza Horizon 4.