Image: Microsoft
Forza Horizon 5’s developers promised shortly after the game’s November launch that they would be adding on-screen sign language interpreters, and they announced Monday that the feature would be added in an update available on March 1st. As part of the update, the game will support both American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) for its in-game cinematics.
While captions can be a useful way to know what’s going on during a game, sign language may be a better way for some to understand what’s happening, especially if sign language is somebody’s first language. If you have the feature turned on, a sign language interpreter will be shown prominently during a cutscene. You can get a look at how it works in the video embedded at the top of this post (or by scrubbing to 4:55).
As far as I can tell, Forza Horizon 5 is the first video game to offer sign language support like this, and it adds to the many other accessibility features already available, including multiple ways to customize subtitles, a screen reader narrator, and a color blindness mode. Microsoft, which owns Forza Horizon 5 developer Playground Games, also makes the Xbox Adaptive Controller that is designed for players with disabilities.