Activision Avoids Addressing Spyro Reignited's Lack of Subtitles

Spyro Reignited Trilogy released recently, where it was generally well received by critics and consumers alike. But despite the modernized controls and high definition graphics, some of the less hearing-capable players are left unhappy at the lack of cutscene subtitles. And when asked about it, Activision dodges it almost entirely.

Rob Pitt, of Gamepitt.co.uk, noticed that the remastered game bundle had no subtitles during the pre-rendered cutscenes, with no option to activate them. This means that any deaf or hard of hearing players are essentially left without context to what'd be considered essential story moments. When he contacted Activision regarding this, a spokesperson gave a standard non-answer, saying that Toys for Bob developed the game and that they care about their customers.

"When Toys For Bob set out to make an awesome game collection, there were certain decisions that needed to be made throughout the process. The team remained committed to keep the integrity and legacy of Spyro that fans remembered intact. The game was built from the ground up using a new engine for the team (Unreal 4) and was localized in languages that had not previously been attempted by the studio. While theres no industry standard for subtitles, the studio and Activision care about the fans' experience especially with respect to accessibility for people with different abilities, and will evaluate going forward."

Pitt is by no means alone in their discontent. The same issue was also present in the Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy, a remaster collection by the same dev/publisher. People on social media have spoken out about the missing feature, criticizing the idea that Activision "evaluated whether to bother supporting deaf players."

This has brought into question what should be required in a video game. The Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 required that various media formats be accessible by people with disabilities. This forced Netflix to implement subtitles for all of their available content. It also included chat systems in online games (text, voice, etc). It currently doesn't require in-game cutscenes to have subtitle options, though that may change when the FCC waiver relating to it expires in December.

If I had to guess, Activision did the math to see how many deaf players they'd lose sales to and compared it to how much it would cost to pay the devs for subtitle work.