Forza Horizon 5 Adds Sign Language Support - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 March 2022 / 1,185 Views
Playground Games in a new update for Forza Horizon 5 has added American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) for in-game cinematics.
The update includes actors from the deaf and hard of hearing community signing in parts of the story between driving. This includes when you jump into challenges, getting ready for a race, meeting other players, and racing across Mexico when planes fly overhead.
"For them, it’s a really tiring experience, not being able to access your first language," said a London-based teacher of the deaf and accessibility consultant Cameron Akitt. "We should be able to access the same story beats and narrative components. Otherwise, we’re only getting half the picture and not getting the full experience. Including sign language is about enabling more deaf and hard of hearing people to have ownership over their gaming experience."
Software engineer Michael Anthony, who lost his hearing when he was a toddler, added, "I was really impressed with the team’s willingness to take this on. One of the things I advocated early on was that they shouldn’t just get an ASL interpreter.
"They should get native speakers to come in and do these performances. It just can’t be done by one person. It takes a team. A lot of nuances are lost with just subtitles or captions. But with this, I’m not missing anything. It’s giant in a good way.'"
Forza Horizon 5 is available for the Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, and Xbox Game Pass.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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