Pokémon has reached its ninth generation with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, representing the series’ first foray into an open world. Results so far have been mixed, with particular focus on the games’ poor technical performance. However, the move to an open world has inspired other problems that, while not alien to the series, are exacerbated by the extra freedom afforded players.
With both games’ maps and minimaps obscured with countless icons, a lack of pathfinding, and no meaningful landmarks, navigation in Pokémon’s ninth generation is, thus far, a nightmare.
While this is partly down to Game Freak’s inexperience with open world games, it’s also part of a growing trend in the industry. Navigation aids, quest logs, objective markers – aspects of gaming with which we’re so familiar – are disappearing. Where once studios like Bethesda and Ubisoft drowned us in wayfinding, now its relative absence is disadvantageous to players. In particular, it’s disadvantageous to cognitively impaired gamers.
Cognitive accessibility is frequently left out of accessibility conversations. This is unsurprising from Japanese studios like Game Freak – or Nintendo – where accessibility is ignored, and often incidental. But as we push towards greater accessibility in the west, most recently with God of War: Ragnarök, why is cognitive accessibility being left behind?
Cognitive impairment, in context
Cognitive impairment affects a range of functions in the human body, including memory, concentration, communication, and emotions. Associated with multiple conditions including dementia, ADHD, autism, and epilepsy, cognitive disability – both mild and significant – also forms a major axis of chronic illness, in the host of conditions labelled chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, and, as of 2020, the after-effects of COVID-19.