Starfield will have a helpful "large font mode" for accessibility and varying screen sizes
Todd Howard knows how important accessible text is for an RPG
Starfield will have a large font mode for accessibility reasons as well as for players with varying screen sizes, Todd Howard reveals.
In an interview with Kinda Funny Games, Bethesda head Todd Howard talks about some of the things players can expect from the studio's upcoming space RPG, Starfield. When asked how the game will work accessibility-wise, Howard said: "I think Xbox has done an incredible job there with everything they've done with accessibility and their controller in particular."
"One thing that we're really leaning in on with this game is having a large font mode, which really is important in an RPG where there's there's a lot of stuff to read." The developer continues: "So it comes into play obviously for accessibility, but also various monitor sizes; I'm noticing that that's really helpful when I play."
Howard also touched on how the mode will also be helpful when playing on smaller devices: "There's a lot more handheld devices coming out where you can stream these games or sometimes even play them natively, and it really helps us there as well so that's one in particular that we're leaning in on."
Howard's revelation came after accessibility advocates took aim at Starfield's UI, blasting it as "abysmally small." While we're yet to see how Bethesda will handle larger fonts, hopefully it'll be enough to help people with visual impairments to play the game.
Elsewhere in the Kinda Funny interview, Howard also revealed that Starfield will be a "modder's paradise" - which is good for Bethesda fans who have been developing the best Skyrim mods for the last 12 years and giving additional life to the studio's single-player games.
Starfield is set to release exclusively for Xbox Series X/S and PC on September 6, 2023.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
While we wait, find out what else we've got to look forward to with our upcoming Bethesda games list.
After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.
"It makes me sick": Skyrim modder with 475,000 downloads, fed up with "daily harassment," abandons modding after "thousands of hours" of work on what she calls "the most advanced follower to ever exist"
BioWare art director is sharing more Dragon Age: The Veilguard concept art, including the very first piece he made for BioWare's latest RPG