In some exciting news, Blizzard has released a beta version for testing of some new accessibility options on their Public Test Realm (PTR), and I have had the opportunity to test it. Unfortunately, the testing period is only one week, and the feature won’t appear in the game until October, assuming it passes the testing phase. I will definitely be submitting my feedback on the entire system. In this article, I will explain what it is and how I think it works, including both the good and bad points from my perspective as an accessible gamer.
I logged into the PTR with high expectations about the new navigation system that we have been waiting for almost a year. My first character, which I created almost a year ago, was imported over to the PTR. I couldn’t wait, so instead of creating a new character, I logged in with my old one. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I first went through all the accessibility settings to make sure I had everything I needed turned on. Then I selected my character and logged in. When the screen loaded, I immediately heard the new beacon sound and almost jumped out of my chair with excitement.
To give a quick back story, I created this character when I first purchased Diablo IV in October 2023. I blundered around the map, accidentally found the first quest, and then found the door to the quest, which was difficult. I ran through the quest not once but about six times before I accidentally found my way to the end and finished it. But I could never get back to find the person I needed to talk to for quest progression. When I logged back in, the beacon was trying to lead me to that person to continue the quest, which I thought was cool.
I started to follow the beacon, which felt a little strange at first. Then I found the first problem with the navigation system. Suddenly, the text-to-speech proudly announced I had reached my destination. I moved around in the general area but did not locate anything. I started looking further away from where it said my destination was. To my surprise, I did locate the person I needed to talk to, but they were nowhere near where it told me the destination was. However, I found them, and last time I tried, I never found them at all, so I guess it was an improvement.
Next, it was time to create a new character and start from the beginning. Let it be known that if you had issues with the character creation process in the past, that hasn’t changed at all, which is very disappointing. But anyway, I created a character. I wanted a male but ended up with a female, which was fine for testing. I logged in and started the quest progress. I followed the beacon to the first person I had to talk to and had the same issue: the beacon told me I was at my destination, then I had to run around quite a bit to find the person, but I did eventually.
Then I had to go to my first dungeon, which was a very strange process. I had a rough idea where the door was, but the beacon seemed to be taking me in the opposite direction. I have since come to the conclusion that this might be deliberate. I think Blizzard wants it to lead you around to collect goodies and kill enemies so you level up. But anyway, I made it to the dungeon and entered. I was really disappointed when I realized there was no beacon to lead me through the actual quest. Of course, I blundered around and failed my first attempt again. But when I had time again, I went back and somehow completed the quest. When I exited the quest, the beacon was back, leading me to the person to talk to again.
Unfortunately, the new navigation system is not perfect, but in my opinion, it is a very good start. I kept playing and was able to complete the entire prologue quest and enter the open online world. This tells me it is definitely better, as I could not do this in the past. I joined up with Blindboy to play some quests together in a team, and we had lots of fun. However, I got lost because I thought the beacon was leading me up the map, whereas Blindboy followed it down the map and reached the destination. So there are definitely improvements needed.
The next step is for me to sit down and write up my thoughts on what changes could benefit us all, as blind and low vision players, and then submit the feedback to Blizzard. I don’t know if there will be further testing in the future, but if there is, I will definitely check it out. Otherwise, we will have to wait until the next release in October.