GACONF AWARDS 2025

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 20 categories, shortlisted by an expert panel, with winners decided on by a combination of public and jury vote during the week of Nov 24th – Nov 30th.

  VOTE HERE

The winners of the GAconf Awards will be revealed in January by the inimitable Steve Saylor together with a host of special guests. You will be able watch the full ceremony on the IGDA-GASIG youtube channel, with audio description, ASL, BSL, and full captions.

This year’s finalists are:

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AAA excellence

Accessibility in a game made on big budget / by a big team

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

• UI size & colour
• Configurable subtitles, captions for important sound effects, visualisation of incoming attack audio. 
• Configurable controls inc. remap invert sensitivity and deadzones. 
• High contrast mode with configurable colours and opacity and choice between fill or outline, item outline thickness. 
• Sim sick toggles.
• Very fine grained difficulty settings for both action and adventure [inc. auto parry], camera hints for puzzles, stealth option to avoid combat.

Assassins Creed: Shadows

Lots, highlights include –

• Powerful remap that allows a choice of action per mapping (hold/press), key/button based map screen navigation, auto loot, auto combo. 
• Audio description for cinematics, menu narration inc. HUD modules & time-sensitive gameplay info, audio cues & audio glossary. 
• Highly configurable HUD inc. toggles, size, background and opacity. 
• Tone indicators for subtitles, captions for sounds with direction indication, full conversation logs. 
• Guided mode for exploration, separate difficulty settings for stealth Vs combat, canon mode to skip narrative decisions.

Doom: The Dark Ages

Lots; highlights include –

• Fine grained difficulty settings & assists [inc. game speed, projectile speed, parry window, damage, daze duration], auto sprint, weapon auto switch, shield throw seek, separate remapping for various mounts & vehicles. 
• Gameplay high contrast settings [configurable degrees of environment desaturation, and colour overlays with configurable hue & opacity for enemy, hazard, interactable, pickup, attack, shield breakable, enemy leaders, and parryable attack], parry recolour, text scale, HUD scale, high contrast HUD setting, pop-up magnification, configurable reticle.  
• Audio visualisation of direction and type of incoming attacks, cinematics intentionally designed for important sounds to original from on-screen sources.
• Motion sickness settings including screen shake, camera effects, chromatic Aberration, FOV, depth of field, motion blur, weapon bob, and game speed also helps with this.

FC 26 

• First AAA to allow high contrast mode in competitive PVP [configurable colour overlay for home/away/goalkeepers/referee clothes/whole body and ball, pitch desaturation slider, player & stadium shadow toggles], menu narration, configurable player indicator size & fade.
• Configurable subtitles, text<->voice chat transcription, very fine grained volume sliders.
• Configurable controls inc. 1 button & 2 button mode, extensive assists [lots each for shooting, passing, defending, switching, dribbling, goalkeeper], analogue sprint. 
• Highly configurable camera, toggleable in-game UI elements, disable menu background video.

F1 25 

• Audio driving assists for blind-accessible driving [speech feedback for turns, audio cues for AI control, braking, gears, steering, track limit, and wrong way], configurable racing line [colourblindness, increased opacity, 2D/3D toggle]. 
• Detailed volume sliders inc. for each audio driving assist, mono/spatial audio, tinnitus relief filter, engineer/voice chat ducking, text<->voice chat transcription. 
• Configurable HUD.
• Configurable controls [inc. remapping, deadzone & sensitivity, adaptive trigger strength, hold/toggle, eye & head tracking, simplified controls option], steering assists, rewind, wide range of difficulty config.

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AA excellence

Accessibility in a game made on a medium budget / by a mid-sized team

Abiotic Factor

• Toggles for camera/movement shake and flashlight flicker
• Granular holds to toggles, option for shorter hold interaction, aim-assisted interaction, configurable cursor behaviour, auto move, configurable controls [remapping, inverts, deadzone, sensitivity, aim assist] 
• Larger text size 
• Subtitles with configurable presentation and direction indication, very detailed volume sliders
• NPC dialogue can be revisited
• Highly configurable server-level gameplay rules
• Reduce blood splatter setting, emetophobia (vomit) setting, trypanophobia (syringe) setting, detailed misophonia options with separate settings for eating/drinking/breathing/humming/repetitive sounds, arachnophobia setting
• Accessibility feedback button directly in accessibility menu

Atomfall

Lots, highlights include – 

• UI scaleable to a very large size [52px@1080p] including some responsive design, high contrast mode [colour overlays for enemies/neutral NPCs, configurable outline colour for interactive objects], colourblind accessible UI by design also with configurable colours, audio assisted aiming [aim snap audio cue, pitch/frequency for crosshair proximity, constant enemy audio loop], gameplay audio cues. 
• Auto move forwards/traverse/fire/reload, no simultaneous inputs by design, hold toggles, walk/jog threshold, configurable melee assist. 
• Sim sick toggles, pause in menus, detective hints, flagging leads.
• Segmented world in smaller areas helps players from getting lost, option for additional wayfinding. 
• Configurable subtitles inc. direction indicator and dialogue tone indicators. 
• Wide selection of individual phobia toggles.

The Rogue Prince of Persia

• Configurable text size and dialogue size
• Configurable controls [remap, stick swap, inversion, dead zone], keyboard & mouse support on consoles.
• Mind map which regroups all your narrative clues to help you understand the next move, story objectives to remind players of their high-level objectives while not taking them by the hand

South of Midnight

• Guiding strand navigational aid [line to objective with configurable length, display time, camera shift to path, and audio beacon with configurable volume & pitch], remove stop motion effect & other sim sickness toggles, replayable cinematics, lore inc main character reminders. 
• Menu text & HUD scaleable to very large, preset+custom colourblind settings, menu narration with configurable speed. 
• Lots of audio & haptic cues.
• Configurable subtitles with directional arrow and captions for sounds.
• Faster holds, glide hold toggle, auto target lock-on (with adjustable sensitivity), skip chase sequences, skip bosses, skip all combat, fine grained difficulty settings inc. invincibility.

PowerWash Simulator 2

• No time limit or fail states 
• Free look and static aiming modes 
• Color options for dirt indicator 
• In-world target guiding player to uncleaned or selected item to be cleaned

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Indie excellence

Accessibility in a game made on a small budget / by a small team

The Art of Fauna 

• Simplified language toggle, multiple font choices. 
• Choice between matching text fragments or matching image fragments.
• Customisable color schemes. 
• Set of content filters to hide various phobia-triggering types of animals. 
• Support for iOS screenreader (playable if totally blind)
• Support for iOS switch control (playable with a single external button)

Trash Goblin

• Dirt highlighter during cleaning, flashes blue to help with Colour Vision Deficiency, highlight trinket’s edge, sans Serif font for readability, text size settings.
• Full camera & object control with keyboard or mouse alone, camera movement speed & edge move toggle, object rotation speed, multiple Chipping play control methods (click, hover, hold), multiple Cleaning play control methods (hover, hold)
• No fail states, time pressures or skill gates. Controls over the speed at which text appears, logs for quests, customers and trinkets. 

Squeakross

• Accessibility settings all on by default.
• Full remapping, mouse X/Y inversion & cursor speed, select while dragging, timers and time penalties turned off by default.
• Auto cross completed, cross empty lines at start, immediately flag mistakes, auto count while dragging, undo, breaking genre conventions through no timers or mistake penalties
• Row & column highlighting by design, each action has a unique visual & sound
• Hints – illogical lines warning, logical next step indication, auto mark completed hints, phone a friend hint system to show mistakes, provide logic assist (show all logical possibilities for a line), or solve a random cell.
• Configurable grid line thickness and separation, night mode, clear colourblind-friendly communication of states with reference panel

Peak

• FOV, toggles for camera bob, screen shake and flashy effects.
• Bug phobia mode.
• The devs have been incredibly reactive to feedback from disabled players post launch and have not only added a lot of accessibility features in regular updates, but also done a lot to normalise and have fun with accessibility info communication.

An Unplayable Game

• a game about accessibility settings that’s just a *bit* too hard for you to play effectively. 
• 10-15 minutes in length with 30+ minutes of developer commentary (with transcript).
• Extremely good example & description of mobility accessibility in platforming games.
• Fully cursor-only play.
• Created by a solo, disabled developer.

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Best Deaf & hard of hearing accessibility

Accessibility for players who are Deaf or hard of hearing

Assassins Creed Shadows
Tone indicators for subtitles, captions for sounds with direction indication, full conversation logs, separate toggle for non-verbal dialogue sounds, highly configurable presentation including spacing and colours.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Configurable subtitles, captions for important sound effects, visualisation of incoming attack audio.

Ghost of Yotei
Subtitles with customisable presentation & speaker names, visual cues when detected by offscreen enemies, visual indication of ranged attacks from offscreen, increase size of glint attack visuals, mono setting. Most if not all important audio is visualised.

Doom: The Dark Ages
Configurable threat detection feature showing directions of attacks and whether they’re parryable, cinematics intentionally designed for important sound effects to originate from on-screen sources wherever possible, subtitles configurable to very large size. 

Abiotic Factor
Directional indicators and informational subtitles for the approach of “Layak” a creature whose approach is usually communicated by directional groaning audio. Subtitle makes it clear quickly that it’s the specific creature that needs an instant directional response.

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Best motor/mobility accessibility

Accessibility for players with motor impairment

Assassins Creed: Shadows

• Powerful remap that allows a choice of action per mapping (hold/press), stick inversion sensitivity and deadzones, trigger threshold & deadzone, left-handed stick/button/mouse swap.
• Separate difficulty settings for stealth Vs combat.
• Key/button based map screen navigation.
• QTE simplify/skip, auto walk, auto loot, auto combo, melee assist, aim lock, parkour complexity, guaranteed assasination, always run, lock camera behind character or on enemies.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown mobile

• Game speed setting, multiple input devices, highly configurable touch controls & touch UI with slots for three control setups, options for auto-potion/parry/hit, options for wall grab hold and double dash, 
• Optional one hit invincibility shield on repeated deaths, extra difficulty preset, slider for boss health 
• All previous settings ported from PC/console [multidirectional parry, melee assist, aim assist, remapping stick swaps & inversion, no QTEs, mash auto complete, fine grained difficulty settings])

Doom: The Dark Ages  

• Weapon auto switch, shield throw seeking, 
• Gameplay modifiers inc. game speed from 50% to 150% in 10% increments, projectile speed, parry window, damage, daze duration, enhanced targeting, empowered attacks, auto sprint, 
• separate remapping for various mounts & vehicles. 

Trash Goblin

• Full camera & object control with keyboard or mouse alone, camera movement speed & edge move toggle, object rotation speed, multiple Chipping play control methods (click, hover, hold), multiple Cleaning play control methods (hover, hold)
• No fail states, time pressures or skill gates.

Battlefield 6

• Comprehensive remapping for each context [infantry, vehicle & UI], holds to toggles, aim & look sensitivities configurable per vehicle type
• Highly configurable aim assists  – input curve, snap, slowdown
• Gameplay assists – auto vault, autodeploy parachute, interact/reload prioritisation, peek type

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Best blind & low vision accessibility

Accessibility for players with low/no vision

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle 

• Settings for UI colour, font size, item outline thickness
• Highly configurable high contrast mode – choice of colours for items/weapons/firearms/adventure books/interactibles/NPCs/enemies, and a choice between outlines or tints with configurable opacity

F1 25 

• Audio driving assists for blind-accessible driving – speech feedback for turns, audio cues for AI control, braking, gears, steering, track limit, and wrong way.
• Configurable racing line – colourblindness, increased opacity, 2D/3D toggle.

FC 26

• First AAA to allow high contrast mode in competitive PVP – configurable colour overlay for home/away/goalkeepers/referee clothes/whole body and ball, pitch desaturation slider, player & stadium shadow toggles
• Menu narration, configurable player indicator size & fade

Atomfall

• UI scaleable to a very large size [52px@1080p] including some responsive design
• High contrast mode – colour overlays for enemies/neutral NPCs, configurable outline colour for interactive objects
• Colourblind accessible UI by design also with configurable colours
• Gameplay audio cues, inc. audio assisted aiming – aim snap audio cue, pitch/frequency for crosshair proximity, constant enemy audio loop.

Hades 2 blind accessibility mod

• Screenreader compatibility via Tolk, including alt text for icons and adaptation of multiple screens to provide more info when using a screenreader
• Menus to teleport players to key locations, any of the current room’s doors, and any of the current room’s rewards/harvest points
• Additional smaller adaptations, including minigame timing

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Best cognitive accessibility

Accessibility for neurodiversity and cognitive/learning disability

Squeakross

• Accessibility settings all on by default.
• Effective tutorials explaining the puzzle mechanics.
• Auto cross completed, cross empty lines at start, immediately flag mistakes, auto count while dragging, undo, breaking genre conventions through no timers or mistake penalties
• Row & column highlighting by design, each action has a unique visual & sound, clear communication of states with reference panel. 
• Hints – illogical lines warning, logical next step indication, auto mark completed hints, phone a friend hint system to show mistakes, provide logic assist (show all logical possibilities for a line), or solve a random cell.

Atomfall 

• Detective hints, flagging leads.
• Dialogue tone indicators.
• Additional wayfinding, segmented world in smaller areas helps players from getting lost.

Assassins Creed Shadows

• Tone Tag “Emotion subtitles” in combination with audio descriptions provide a wealth of non verbal subtext information to autistic players.Icons to reinforce dialogue implications.
• Conversation logs.
• Option to display quest objectives permanently, guiding line on ground, 
• Guided mode for exploration, canon mode to skip narrative decisions.
• Default NPC tracking.

The Rogue Prince of Persia
Mind map which regroups all your narrative clues to help you understand the next move, story objectives to remind players of their high-level objectives while not taking them by the hand 

Doom: The Dark Ages
Comprehensive motion sickness settings including screen shake, camera effects, chromatic Aberration, FOV, depth of field, motion blur, weapon bob, and detailed audio settings and game speed control that also help with it.

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Best mental health accessibility

Accessibility for trauma, phobia, and other mental health conditions

Abiotic Factor

• Reduce blood splatter setting, toggles for emetophobia (vomit), trypanophobia (syringe), and arachnophobia.
• Detailed misophonia options with separate settings for eating/drinking/breathing/humming/repetitive sounds, arachnophobia setting

Atomfall
Wide selection of individual phobia toggles that swap triggery models – rats, bats, bees, leeches, insects, birds, eels – out for Cornish pasties

Art of Fauna
Set of content filters that individually hide various types of phobia-prone animals – including spiders, snakes, reptiles in general, insects, worms, octopuses, eels, bats, crocodiles/alligators – with a prompt shown when one is encountered that offers the option to bypass it for that particular species.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage
Upfront high level content warning with option to turn on more specific contextual warnings, with QR code to more detailed version on website 

Date Everything
Content warnings integrated into narrative, letting characters be skipped without penalty

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Best representation

Representation of disabled characters and experiences

Stumble Guys
Wheelchair user skin inspired by real player

Overwatch
Hazard character based on lived experience of limb loss and trying to obtain suitable prosthetics 

Just Dance 2026
Dancer Angelina Bruno returns (they were the coach for Blinding Lights, the first JD track to feature disability front and centre)

The Alters
Jan Miner, a character who had loss of limb and his storyline is the complex nature of identity, disability and mental health

Wildwood Down
Protagonist has Down’s Syndrome. Based on developed with and voiced acted by a person with Down’s

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Best journalism

Article about game accessibility

How a small team is helping to move accessibility forward, one thumbstick at a time, by Vivek Gohil

Former Employees, Community Members Allege AbleGamers Founder Fostered Abuse Behind Closed Doors, by Grant Stoner

Democratizing horror: How Mega Cat Studios brought accessibility to Five Nights at Freddy’s, by Madison Petrick

Diablo IV: Second Anniversary – Interview with Drew McCrory, by Antonio Martinez

Don’t Call Your Video Game “Accessible For Everyone”, by Laura Kate Dale

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Best academic research

Published academic paper on game accessibility

How Users Who are Blind or Low Vision Play Mobile Games: Perceptions, Challenges, and Strategies, by Zihe Ran et al

PunchPulse: A Physically Demanding Virtual Reality Boxing Game Designed with, for and by Blind and Low-Vision Players, by Sanchita S. Kamath et al

Designing and Evaluating a VR Boxing Experience with Blind People, by Diogo Furtado et al

Inclusive Avatar Guidelines for People with Disabilities: Supporting Disability Representation in Social Virtual Reality, by Kexin Zhang et al

VRCaptions: Design Captions for DHH Users in Multiplayer Communication in VR, by Tianze Xie et al

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Best assistive technology

New or improved accessibility tech

Xbox Adaptive Joystick
Highly accessible stick & buttons at extremely low price

Steamdeck accessibility update
UI scaling, high contrast mode, reduce motion, screenreader with configurable volume/rate/pitch. 

PS5 Audio Focus
Make soft sounds clearer, independently adjustable for each ear

Switch 2
Menu text scaleable to a very large size, bold text, high contrast text, mono audio, menu narration, text<->voice chat transcription

Byowave Proteus builder
Simplified cheaper one handed version of the Proteus controller, with optional tabletop mounted ergonomic shell

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Best accessibility resource

Resource for players or resource for developers

AbleToPlay
Matches gamers to games based on personal accessibility compatibility

Accessible Games Initiative
Shared language & criteria for tags developed by a partnership between Xbox, Amazon, EA, Google, Nintendo, Riot, Ubisoft, Square Enix and Warner Brothers, being rolled out across multiple companies’ storefronts

Chroma
Open source realtime colourblind simulatio

Upgraded screenreader support in Unity 6.3
Native screenreader support for Windows and MacOS, together with new accessibility roles, scrolling support and API improvements

Accessibility support in Godot
Implementation of AccessKit, meaning compatibility with screenreaders as well as some other accessibility related OS settings (high contrast, reduce animation, reduce transparency and screen reader status)

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Best comms and marketing

Efforts to share & promote accessibility work with the community, and to share & promote in an accessible way

Atomfall accessibility overview trailer
Detailed look at the accessibility features in the game featuring a range of developers across disciplines, and one of the game’s disabled consultants discussing lived experience

FC26 accessibility in reveal trailer
High contrast mode featured in the first ever look at the game

Accessible Games Initiative reveal on the main stage at at GDC
Featuring ESA, Xbox, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Google, EA

Switch 2 accessibility info page
Overview of the system level functionality on the console, with video demos and easy-read copy

Kirby Air Riders Nintendo Direct stream accessibility segment
Presented by game director, inc. saying motion sickness was a personal priority for him, giving explicit instructions on which buttons to remap for one handed play, and lots of reassurance about how intimidating configuration can be

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Most improved

Progress through patches, mods, or remakes/remasters 

Sea of Thieves 

• Text overlay feature for riddle maps with configurable colours and scaling up to a huge size, menu narration improvements inc. better dualsense and timezone support, and high contrast map setting now applies to fishing
• FOV slider configurable over a wider range
• Emetophobia toggle turn off all vomit sounds, including sounds made by players and pets.
• Improved remapping/keybinding

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown mobile

• Extra visual cues, directional assist, expanded tutorials
• Game speed setting, multiple input devices, highly configurable touch controls & touch UI with slots for three control setups, options for auto-potion/auto-parry/auto-hit, options for wall grab hold and double dash
• Optional one hit invincibility shield on repeated deaths, extra difficulty preset, slider for boss health

Star Wars: Outlaws 1.4/1.5/1.6/1.7/Switch 2

• Accessibility upgrades across every point update for the whole game lifecycle
• Controller remapping, strong aim assist, auto transfer for climbing. 
• Faster menu narration (400%), extra menu narration for minigames objective hints and map navigation, configurable HUD contrast & colours, improved gameplay high contrast modes, configurable camera cone visibility.  
• Cinematic effects toggle, accessibility shortcut, preset for handheld play, more volume sliders
• Fixes for accessibility bugs

Roblox text scaling 
Enabled by default across all Roblox games – millions of them

Hades 2 blind accessibility mod

• Screenreader compatibility via Tolk, including alt text for icons and adaptation of multiple screens to provide more info when using a screenreader
• Menus to teleport players to key locations, any of the current room’s doors, and any of the current room’s rewards/harvest points
• Additional smaller adaptations, including minigame timing

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Greatest accessibility innovation

New steps forward for the industry

IRIS epilepsy testing plugin
For Unreal Engine

FC26 configurable high contrast settings in PVP
First time any big name game has allowed functionality like this in competitive PVP

Atomfall text scaling
To a very large size – 52px@1080p – including some responsive design

Accessible Games Initiative
Shared language & criteria for tags developed by a partnership between Xbox, Amazon, EA, Google, Nintendo, Riot, Ubisoft, Square Enix and Warner Brothers, being rolled out across multiple companies’ storefronts

Assassin’s Creed Shadows tone tag “Emotion subtitles”
In combination with audio descriptions provide a wealth of non verbal subtext information to autistic players.

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Most dedicated publisher

The publisher making the most significant or most consistent accessibility efforts

Electronic Arts
IRIS photosensitivity Unreal plugin, expanded patent pledge, Split Fiction, FC26, F1 25, Battlefield 6, College Football 26, Madden 26

Ubisoft
Chroma CB simulation tool, Assassins Creed: Shadows, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown mobile, The Rogue Prince of Persia, Anno 117: Pax Romana, ongoing updates to Star Wars: Outlaws

Xbox
Adaptive Joystick, Adaptive Controller updates, South of Midnight, Avowed, Keeper, The Outer Worlds 2, Ninja Gaiden 4, Gears of War Reloaded, Flight Simulator 2024, rapid adoption of AGI tags

Bethesda
Doom: The Dark Ages, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Heretic & Hexen remaster

PlayStation
PS5 Audio Focus settings, Ghost of Yotei, Days Gone Remastered, Lost Soul Aside, MLB The Show 25

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Most dedicated studio

The studio making the most significant or most consistent accessibility efforts

Aggro Crab
Frequent updates to Peak, following on from Another Crab’s Treasure

id Software
Doom: The Dark Ages and Heretic & Hexen remaster, following on from Doom Eternal and Doom/Quake remasters

Rare
Ongoing updates to Sea of Thieves

Massive Entertainment
Ongoing updates to Star Wars: Outlaws

Klemens Strasser
Art of Fauna, following on from Subwords, Ancient Board Game Collection, and Elementary Minute

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MVP award for unsung hero

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)

Paul Parsons
Line Producer at EA Sports behind the new FC26 accessibility features, who brought them to lift within less than a year

Luke Heanue
Accessibility Designer with the EA Accessibility Team who supported FC26, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Dead Space Remake, and many others

Holly Wescott
Accessibility Lead at Amazon Games, she has built out the publishers’ accessibility team with subject matter experts, creating the accessibility standards for all projects, such as King of Meat, and ensuring the disabled voice is heard at all points of the development in the short time she has been at Amazon Games

Elisabeth Whyte
Senior User Researcher on the Bethesda User Research team bringing accessibility best practices to Zenimax, Bethesda, and Xbox Game studios and ensuring that the voices of players with disabilities are included in games user research. She supported the release of Indiana Jones and The Great Circle and Doom: The Dark Ages and many other titles, including helping them write their marketing and informational materials on the accessibility in their games so that all players know what accessibility these games have to offer. 

Tülay Tetiker McNally
Sr. Director, Inclusive Design Strategy at Scopely – a steadfast leader and program manager in accessibility and inclusive design. Aside from being a dedicated advocate, she has been in the games industry for almost 20 years, from supporting QA teams to handling studio operations—she knows game dev and production processes inside out—making her a very smart and solid pillar that both developers and players can rely on.

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The advocacy award

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

Elisabeth “Arevya” Sivertsen

Laura Kate Dale

Jesse “illegallysighted” Anderson

Antonio Martinez

Rodrigo Sanchez

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  VOTE HERE

LAST YEAR'S WINNERS