Welcome back for another edition of the GAconf Awards, once again recognising and celebrating the efforts of people across and around game development to raise the bar for accessibility.
This year we have 19 categories, shortlisted by an expert panel, with winners decided on by a combination of public and jury vote during the week of Nov 25th – December 1st.
The winners of the GAconf Awards will revealed in January by the inimitable Steve Saylor together with a host of special guests. You will be able to watch the full ceremony on the IGDA-GASIG youtube channel, with audio description, ASL, BSL, and full captions.
VOTE HERE!This year’s finalists, together with links and info on why they’re finalists, are:
Accessibility in a game made on big budget / by a big team
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Highlights include lots of accessibility by design e.g. pinning screenshots to the map, text size & contrast, colourblindness, no QTEs, no info through sound alone, training area, conversation log, etc. And options, like gameplay high contrast mode that has presets for colourblindness, lots of assists inc platforming, melee, parrying & aiming, broad & fine grained difficulty settings, guided mode adding icons & available/blocked path info to map
Star Wars Outlaws
Highlights include configurable gameplay contrast, detailed menu narration inc. HUD updates and blind-accessible open world map, UI size & contrast inc. large text option on title screen before any menus, audio description for cinematics, automation & assists baked in by design through low-precision Nix companion mechanic inc. interact, attack, pick up, and see through walls, further wide range of assist settings inc. auto-walk, auto vault/mantle and auto-perfect reload, cognitive accessibility focus with the accessibility presets including one for cognitive, granular difficulty including per-minigame, no info through sound alone inc. detailed subtitle & captions system with dedicated overheard NPC chatter panel, wide range of sim sickness settings inc. space flight sim sickness considerations by design, and audio focus mode
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Highlights include wide range of fine grained difficulty inc. invincibility, configurable combat inc. parry timing & aim assist strength, customisable HUD, text size settings, customisable subtitles, optional audio cues for some visual mechanics inc. incoming attacks, lock-on, and conversation wheels, sim sickness settings, mono audio mode with left/right panning slider, holds to taps, object glint distance & visibility and spatialised ping, world & local maps available at all times, melee/ranged thread indicators, no info by sound alone inc, visual combat/exploration cues, waypoint visibility, detailed codex inc. lore glossary, all spiders removed by default
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Highlights include presets for simplified controls / low motor strain / visual support / motion reduction, asymmetrical hearing compensation, intelligent movement automation, customisable HUD with a range of presets, holds to taps, improved gameplay high contrast, arachnophobia settings, customisable color palette for key elements
Life Is Strange: Double Exposure
Highlights include content warning pause with optional warnings across a wide range of triggery content and also warnings for sudden brightness or volume changes, longer choice times, major choice confirmation, camera assist, simple power effects, hotspot pinging
Accessibility in a game made on a small budget / by a small team
Periphery Synthetic
Blind-first audiogame
Another Crab’s Treasure
Wide range of gameplay modifiers in a Soulslike game, including 1-hit-kills by giving the crab a gun
Botany Manor
No time pressure or fail states, breaks encouraged, sim sickness considerations, non-serif text overlay, dual channel
Pine Hearts
Text options, gameplay high contrast mode, simplified controls
Plucky Squire
Story mode, jump assist, disable falling platforms, show hidden portals, invincibility, one hit kills, hint companions
Accessibility for players who are Deaf or hard of hearing
Skull & Bones
Customisable subtitles & captions with display of distance in metres to the source of the sound, presentation settings include letter spacing
Spider-Man 2 caption update
captions for non-dialogue sounds in cutscenes, including names of songs & artists for music
Star Wars Outlaws
No info communicated through sound alone inc. optional minigame visual cues, detailed subtitle & captions system with alien translations and dedicated overheard NPC chatter panel, presentation settings include scaleable to very large size and bold text option, audio focus mode to pare back the mix to just the most important sounds
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Asymmetrical hearing compensation allowing frequency ranges to be adjusted for each ear, setting to reduce tinnitus sounds
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
All combat audio is visualised, captions for sounds, mono audio setting with mono panning slider
Accessibility for players with motor impairment
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Very powerful remapping allowing button combinations and choice of input type per action – tap, double tap, short hold, long hold, toggle
Soundtown
One button controls, designed specifically for kids with complex motor disability
Just Dance 2025
Dances suitable for seated play
Star Wars Outlaws
Ability to simplify precision and complexity by design via instruction your pet companion, and an extensive range of optional assist settings
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Intelligent movement automation covering sprint assist, mantle assist, crouch assist, and corner slice, available in PVP games
Accessibility for players with low/no vision
Periphery Synthetic
Blind-first audiogame
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Gameplay high contrast mode with presets for colourblindness, large high contrast UI by default
Star Wars Outlaws
Highly configurable gameplay high contrast modes, text/UI scaling & high contrast settings with prompts for menu narration & large text before any menus, detailed menu narration inc. fully accessible map and HUD updates, audio description for cinematics
Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
Blind nav assist update, adding multi-layered audio cues to navigate to quest map markers
Toby Doom Mod 7 & 7.5
Blind accessible Doom mod – 2024 updates include improved menu narration, area scanner, snap to target system, map announcement system, and pathfinder to set and navigate between audio beacons)
Accessibility for neurodiversity and cognitive/learning disability
Accessibility for trauma, phobia, and other mental health conditions
Representation of disabled characters and experiences
Article about game accessibility
Published academic paper on game accessibility
New or improved accessibility tech
Resource for players or resource for developers
Efforts to share & promote accessibility work with the community, and to share & promote in an accessible way
Progress through patches, mods, or remakes/remasters
New steps forward for the industry
The publisher making the most significant or most consistent efforts
The studio making the most significant or most consistent efforts
An individual developer without a large public presence making significant and consistent efforts internally within a company (this can include people working in accessibility roles)
This award can be someone either in a development role or not – anyone who is an advocate using their voice to make a difference across the wider industry
HOW THE AWARDS WORK