Accessibility is one of our top priorities when creating Diablo IV. We integrated it into our development process from the very beginning and worked with the disability community to discuss, iterate and test its features. With a more supportive and customizable gaming experience, these considerations have allowed our games to reach a legion of new players.

Diablo IV opened a hellish new chapter on October 8 with Vessel of hatred. To bring this adventure to life, our team has developed new accessibility features designed to support visually impaired players as they traverse the new region of Nahantu. With these updates, players can better find their way (and fight) through the dangerous jungle.

The features added to Diablo IV with the launch of Vessel of Hatred allow even more players to navigate the grim world of Sanctuary. We have rolled out:

• Automatic pin: A new feature that automatically places a map pin at the destination of your selected quest or task from your in-game Journal. When you drop a pin, your mini-map will show a route to follow to reach your chosen destination. A dropped pin becomes the default when selecting quests and enables additional navigation features.

• Audio navigation aid: When this feature is enabled, the player will receive spatial audio pings that direct the player to the placed pin on the overworld map. This feature, combined with auto-pin navigation, allows players to navigate quest content while following their destination via audio navigation. We recommend using headphones for the best immersive sound results. Players can adjust both the volume and interval of the ping to find a level that suits their needs.
• Compass: The compass feature enables an on-screen HUD element that circles around the player and points to the placed pin in the world. In combination with auto-pin, this provides even more guidance for the player. The color of the arrow can be changed to suit their needs and ensures that it is clearly visible while slaughtering the inhabitants of Hell.

“As developers, we want as many players as possible to get into the game,” said Drew McCrory, lead accessibility designer for Diablo IV. “While we designed this set of features specifically with the blind and visually impaired community in mind, we’ve found that each release proves the power of accessibility to bring our games to more players. We help people who may have disabilities, in addition to new players who can use these features as they learn to navigate the world of Sanctuary.

Direct feedback from the disability community was key to shaping these features and equipping Vessel of Hatred with 3D spatial sound. From the Public Test Realm (PTR), our developers received input on the audio navigation, which led to adding three unique audio pings and varying the sound patterns to represent multiple pieces of information via audio.

These are the latest additions to Diablo IV’s existing suite of accessibility features. Find more information in our pre-launch blog.

The accessibility work is never done and the team continues the conversations as we make plans for future seasons. Making a game more accessible makes it more accessible, and we’d like to welcome more players to the Diablo universe to take part in the ill-fated campaign against Mephisto.