Pokémon Sword and Shield came out last week, giving fans the weekend to jump into the idyllic British-inspired setting. While the build-up to launch found Game Freak wading through the controversy surrounding the leaked character models, it seems there’s a new and odd annoyance that has been discovered within the game.
No, this isn’t more angry gamers ranting about shadow rendering and draw distances, this is something related to accessibility, and quite frankly, a mind-boggling option.
Nikki ‘Gazelle’ Crenshaw on Twitter put forward the below tweet to her followers, asking what their thoughts were on the “Hi-tech Earbuds” that are available in Sword and Shield. This obtainable in-game item rather peculiarly unlocks the ability to adjust the volume controls.
…Curious what people think of the hi-tech earbuds in Sword/Shield. After your get them, you gain access to volume sliders for music, sfx, and poke cries. Why would you lock something like this behind game progress though? #a11y #gamea11y pic.twitter.com/ARrzJMGCGH
— Nikki ‘Gazelle’ Crenshaw (@Gaiazelle) November 17, 2019
Rather than, like nearly every other game in existence, offer the player the ability to adjust the volume levels manually from an options screen, Sword and Shield seem to require you to earn that option.
The items description explains, “Strange earbuds that allow you to freely control the volume of various sounds. Crenshaw does elaborate, explaining that these sounds are for music, sound effects, Pokémon cries, etc.
To make it even weirder, these earbuds are obtained by a random NPC that you meet fairly far into Pokémon Sword and Shield and can be easily overlooked. You don’t even need to talk to the character which means you can go the entire game without being allowed to adjust audio options.
So why is this weird and irritating for a lot of players? For accessibility reasons. The adjustment of volume options isn’t simply put into games so you don’t have to reach for the remote and turn the TV down. They’re also there so people with disabilities that may require the volume to be turned down or to bring attention to specific sounds without being distracted. Such as deafness, misophonia, autism, and more.
Accessibility specialist, Ian Hamilton has made efforts to reach out to Junichi Masuda asking for this to be fixed.
Ouch. @Junichi_Masuda can you fix this please? This needs to be in the settings menu from the start, not an unlockable. There are people who cannot play without it.
— Ian Hamilton (@ianhamilton_) November 17, 2019
I’ve seen a few people arguing that you can just adjust the volume of the game through the Switch alone, but this only controls the master volume. Someone on Twitter commented, “I had problems with the first few towns’ music getting way too harsh for my brain too [sic] handle listening to it over and over.”
Nikki states that she found this NPC randomly outside of a shop roughly 5 hours into her game. So if you’re wanting to grab the Hi-tech Earbuds that’s where to keep your eyes peeled.
Game Freak hasn’t commented on the weird feature yet but people are talking and raising concerns about the choice to lock manual volume sliders behind an obtainable item.
Pokémon Sword and Shield is available on the Nintendo Switch.
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