The Last Of Us 2 Dev Talks Accessibility -- "Games Are For Everyone"

Naughty Dog's The Last of Us: Part II will feature more than 60 different accessibility options that are aimed at helping the game appeal to a wide audience. Audio lead Robert Krekel has now shared a little more light on some of the audio-focused accessibility features, while he also spoke about how Naughty Dog's future projects will go even further and offer more in the way of accessibility features.

Posting on Twitter, Krekel said The Last of Us: Part II can be "pretty much" completed with only audio. The audio team spent a good amount of time and effort to create a system that allows players who are blind or have limited vision to play The Last of Us: Part II.

"It's astounding how well it works," he said. "One small example is I was able to successfully complete combat sections of the game with my eyes closed. Including stealth kills and dodging in melee encounters."

The Last of Us: Part II also makes use of a text-to-speech system that Krekel estimates is breaking new ground for video games. "We implemented a complete text to speech system and made sure that it was compatible with all our needed words and phrase," he said. "It's extremely comprehensive and not something that I have seen a single game do as it is usually done on the platform level."

This text to speech system is localized in languages other than English, though he Krekel did not provide a list of support languages. "I'm extremely proud of the work that we put in to make our game accessible to anyone who wants to play," he said.

Krekel praised and thanked the accessibility consultants who worked with Naughty Dog on the implementation of these features and others. While Krekel is proud of what The Last of Us: Part II has achieved in regards to accessibility, he said Naughty Dog's next projects will go further.

"We took a big step on The Last of Us Part 2 with accessibility but we are not satisfied," he said. "We will continue to evolve and improve these systems over our coming projects. The goal being that anyone should be able to finish our games. Games are for everyone."

The Last of Us: Part II launches on June 19 for PlayStation 4 before heading to the PlayStation 5 later this year alongside thousands of other PS4 games. GameSpot's The Last of Us: Part II review will go live on June 12, but ahead of that, you can check out our recent preview, which is linked below.

• The Last Of Us 2 Preview: Shockingly Ruthless