Disability
Problem
46 million Americans with disabilities play video games. 81% of them struggle with inaccessible features. 39% have been forced to abandon games they loved. The Last of Us Part II proved accessible design makes better games for everyone. Most of the industry has not noticed.
One in Five Players Has a Disability. The Industry Designs for Four in Five.
The numbers are stark and rarely acknowledged in mainstream gaming discourse. Of the more than 216 million Americans who play video games regularly, approximately 46 million have one or more disabilities. Global estimates place disabled gamers at between 20% and 30% of the total player population — with some studies suggesting over 30% of gamers have a disability of some kind. This is not a niche accessibility concern. It is a fundamental question about who the industry believes its audience is.
The 2025 Samsung UK research put numbers to the experience that disabled players already knew: 81% struggle with inaccessible features, and 39% have been forced to completely abandon games they loved because of design choices that excluded them. These are not edge cases of highly specific impairments requiring specialised solutions. They are people who wanted to play, had the games, and could not — because nobody at the studio thought about them during development.
“Historically, gaming has not been particularly welcoming to the disability community. Gamers with disabilities were forced to adapt if they wanted to play, putting the onus on consumers to make gaming accessible for themselves. That is changing — but far too slowly, and far too unevenly.”
AbleGamers — 2024 Industry ReportWhat ‘Inaccessible’ Actually Looks Like in Practice
The barriers disabled gamers face are not all dramatic or obvious. Some are structural — a game that requires two simultaneous button inputs with no remapping option excludes players with one hand. A game with no subtitle option excludes Deaf players entirely. A first-person game with no motion sickness settings excludes players with vestibular disorders. These are not rare disabilities. They are common experiences affecting millions of players, and they can be addressed with features that cost studios relatively little to implement.
Samsung’s research found that 28% of disabled gamers experience cognitive overload through complex control configurations and hard-to-follow information. Nearly a quarter face dexterity issues where controllers are simply not designed for their ergonomic needs. The most-requested future features are straightforward: more accessory options for differently-abled players, more online multiplayer options catering to different disabilities, improved guides and tutorials, and a greater range of customisable controller options.
The economic argument they keep ignoring: 45% of individuals with disabilities play video games. The potential market is enormous — and largely underserved. Making games accessible is not a cost. It is an expansion of the addressable audience. Every player forced to abandon a game due to inaccessible design is a player who will not buy DLC, sequels, or future titles from that studio. The accessibility gap is a revenue gap dressed up as a design oversight.
What Best Practice Actually Looks Like
| Feature Category | What It Addresses | The Last of Us Part II | Industry Standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vision | Blind and low-vision players | Full audio descriptions, high-contrast mode, text size scaling, screen reader support | Inconsistent — many games still ship with no vision options |
| Hearing | Deaf and hard-of-hearing players | Full captions, visual audio cues, subtitle customisation including size and background | Subtitles common but quality varies enormously |
| Motor | Players with limited dexterity or one-handed play | Full button remapping, hold-to-toggle for all inputs, one-handed mode | Button remapping still missing from many major titles |
| Cognitive | Players with ADHD, dyslexia, or processing differences | Navigation assistance, aim assists, combat assist modes, simplified HUD options | Rarely addressed beyond difficulty settings |
| Vestibular | Players with motion sickness or balance disorders | Camera shake reduction, motion blur off, field-of-view controls | Improving but still inconsistently implemented |
Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II shipped in 2020 with over 60 accessibility features — described at the time as the most accessible game ever made. The BBC covered it. Academic researchers cited it. It won accessibility awards. And five years later, the majority of studios still do not reach anything close to that standard. The benchmark exists. It has existed for five years. The industry has largely chosen not to follow it.
What Has Actually Changed — And What Hasn’t
There are genuine reasons for optimism that did not exist five years ago. In 2025, the Accessible Games Initiative launched — a collective of major publishers forming to create standardised accessibility tag names and definitions, helping developers communicate accessibility information to disabled players in consistent, meaningful terms. Xbox has already added these standardised tags to its digital storefront. PlayStation and Nintendo are expected to follow.
Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller, launched in 2018, remains a landmark hardware achievement — a modular controller designed from the ground up for players with limited mobility, compatible with a wide range of third-party assistive devices. Sony followed in 2023 with the Access Controller for PS5. The hardware ecosystem for disabled players is meaningfully better than it was a decade ago.
But hardware and standardised tags do not solve a software problem. The 2025 research data — 81% of disabled gamers still facing barriers, 39% forced to abandon games — was collected after these initiatives launched. The structural problem is not the absence of standards or hardware. It is that accessibility features are still treated by most studios as an optional post-launch add-on rather than a core design requirement built from day one.
Comprehensive accessibility requires significant engineering time, QA testing, and specialist consultation. For smaller studios operating on tight budgets, the cost-benefit of implementing full accessibility suites may genuinely be prohibitive. The Accessible Games Initiative is building the infrastructure to make this easier over time, and progress should be measured against where the industry was, not against an ideal standard.
The features most commonly missing — button remapping, subtitle customisation, hold-to-toggle inputs — are not complex or expensive to implement when built from the start. They are expensive to retrofit. The accessibility gap is largely a planning gap: studios that do not include disabled players in their design process from day one find that adding features later costs more than building them in. The solution is not more budget. It is earlier intention.
Accessibility Is Not a Checkbox. It Is a Design Philosophy.
The Last of Us Part II demonstrated something the industry has been slow to internalise: accessible design does not just help disabled players. It makes games better for everyone. Subtitle customisation benefits players in loud environments. Hold-to-toggle inputs reduce strain for all players during long sessions. High-contrast modes clarify visual information that can be overwhelming regardless of vision status. The features built for accessibility are frequently the features that make games more comfortable and enjoyable for the entire player base.
The Accessible Games Initiative, the Xbox Adaptive Controller, and the growing body of academic research on disabled gaming experiences represent genuine progress. They also represent how far the industry still has to travel. 81% of disabled gamers struggling with inaccessible features in 2025 — after five years of The Last of Us Part II as a published benchmark, after the Xbox Adaptive Controller, after the AGI — is not a number that describes an industry making adequate progress.
There are 46 million Americans with disabilities who play games. They are not asking for special treatment. They are asking to play the games everyone else is playing, using the controllers they have, with the sensory and motor capabilities they have. The industry has the knowledge, the tools, and more than enough revenue to make that possible. The only thing missing is the decision to make it a priority from day one rather than an afterthought from day three hundred.
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