‘Forza Horizon 5’ accessibility features to include support for sign languages post-launch

A few days before the “Forza Horizon 5” launches, developer Playground Games addressed the community of gamers with disabilities to detail the upcoming games’ accessibility features. Aside from subtitles available at launch, the studio announced it is working on adding support for American and British Sign Language in a later update.

“Forza Horizon 5” creative director Mike Brown discussed the accessibility features that will be available at launch in a recent blog post on Xbox Wire. While the game will launch with a wide array of these features this week, Brown confirmed that they plan on adding more, including support for American Sign Language and British Sign Language.

“This feature will include a picture-in-picture display near the bottom of the screen of an ASL/BSL interpreter during the cinematics in the game,” Brown wrote. Players can enable the on-screen ASL and BSL interpreter during cinematic scenes of “Forza Horizon 5.”

Brown did not provide a specific release date for the ASL and BSL support. But the “Forza Horizon 5” creative director said it would be “coming soon.” Players can also find a sneak peek into this feature in an unlisted video on the Forza YouTube channel.

While fans will still have to wait for the ASL and BSL support, “Forza Horizon 5” is slated to launch with a wide array of accessibility features. There will be a Game Speed Modification setting for offline games, which should also be helpful to players who have yet to play any “Forza” game. There will be a High Contrast mode that will allow players to adjust colors to make texts and menu buttons more visible. At launch, players will also have access to the Color Blindness mode with separate settings to adjust the colors of the UI and game visuals.

Before the on-screen ASL and BSL interpreter is added to the game, “Forza Horizon 5” will also support subtitles with several customization options. Players can enable or disable this feature, adjust the font size, adjust the text background opacity, and highlight keywords. There is also an option to customize the menu and gameplay font sizes in the entire game.

Players can also use a screen reader narrator that will dictate text and buttons. Voice Chat will also support text-to-speech and speech-to-text options. There is also an option to disable moving backgrounds. “Forza Horizon 5” will be released on Tuesday, Nov. 9 on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S with day-one availability on Xbox Game Pass.