Blizzard promises to look into Hearthstone accessibility after crucial modder steps down

Hearthstone
(Image credit: Blizzard)

One community developer was single-handedly keeping 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Hearthstone accessible to blind and visually impaired players, but now they're stepping away - and after a community outcry, Blizzard is finally stepping🔯 in to investigate an official solution.

"With Hearthstone Access mod support ending,🌌 we’ve made the decision to shift our work in this area," a Blizzard community manager says in a . "Instead of working on accessibility features that complement Hearthstone Acce🧔ss, we’ll be exploring what it will take to implement native accessibility features that allow for our blind and low vision community to get back into the game."

There's no timeline on when those features will be implemented, but Blizzard says it's not a small undertaking. "We’re very sorry to our friends and players who won’t have access to Hearthstone during this time. If you have further accessibility feedback, you can contact us at accessibility𓂃@blizzard.com."

An anonymous developer who goes by GuideDev online has been working on Hearthstone Access for over a year now. The mod essentially gives Hearthstone screen reader functions across many modes. Technically, use of a mod like this could be considered a bannable offense for altering the game, but Blizzard has been pretty supportive of Hearthstone Access🏅, even providing early information to GuideDev a🌞bout which parts of the mod will need changing to stay compatible with further Hearthstone updates.

Unfortunately, those updates continued to be necessary because the game's patches💙 keep breaking Hearthstone Access. Every new patch meant that GuideDev had to fix Hearthstone Access for compatibility, and that endless grind has gotten to be too much.

"Carrying Hearthstone Access on my back all this time has become increasingly difficult and 𒁏the time has come for me to take a step back," GuideDev said in a last week. "I really, really hate to be doing this, but the last few months have been extremely busy and I've been seriously struggling to keep ඣup with everything."

Players making use of Hearthstone Access have been very understanding of GuideDev's decision to step away, but they stepped up pre൲ssure on Blizzard for Hearthstone accessibility features in the wake of the news, and 🎃for an official solution.

Now that solution is f🍨inally coming, though it may still be some time away. For now, 🅺they're "happy to hear and very much looking forward to seeing it come to life. Feel free to reach out if you ever need my help."

Blizzard concludes its announcemen♛t by saying "thank you to GuideDev and to all our players in the blind and low vision communities. We’ve been encouraged by so many players coming together to show their support for this issue and look forward to sharing more details with you once we have them."

We can deal you some excellent 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:games like Hearthstone.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these day𝓰s you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest bไig action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.