I've been having a lot of fun with Baldur's Gate 3, but I've been running into some issues on the visually impaired front. I'm gonna be a bit negative up in here, but do please realize that I love the game, even with it's flaws. I'm also gonna show you the "Accessibility Menu!(tm)" I'm not stripping out the mods I have installed right now because that breaks things maybe so I won't have screenshots for some things, sorry.

tl;dr: Big Mad, Like Game. Why Accessibility never a thing.

My Particular Brand of Disability!

Long story short, can't see good.
Slightly longer story: I've got brain damage, always had. was born like that. My eyes don't work so good and my retinas are not attached right. This means that i only have about 10% functional vision on the best of days. measurements go anywhere between 5-10% for me. I've never had functional depth perception, I can't read signs from a decent distance away and my brain does not understarnd the human face(I don't recognize people). Also my retinas not being attached right means that i can go blind at any moment without notice!(FUN TIMES)

My motor skills are also hosed, brain damage remember.

My issues with Baldur's Gate 3

The general UI is tiny, icons are similair, poorly visible and in awkward locations. In some menus like the "View entire Party + Inventories" at once menu, I've yet to find certain buttons. They either don't exist or are so obscured by the visual busyness of the menu that my brain doesn't register em. The general text in the UI is tiny. The text in the combat log is tiny.

There are "accessibility options" in the game and in my opinion? Out of the 18 presented? 1 qualifies. the rest are standard settings for videogames at this point, it's what I'd call the bare minimum effort and they haven't even done that.

The "Accessibility!(tm)" Menu

There's gonna be a few images here, mostly listing the various accessibility options that Larian presents, Let's see how many are Accesiblity options!

Input mode: Do I want to use Keyboard, Mouse or another device for controlling the game? This is just a wich HID device do i wanna use to play my videogame setting, This'll be under general controls. It's nice to have it here as well.
Longer Press and Hold: This is acccessibility, makes sticky keys work nicer.

Show Genitals: Nope, General Gameplay setting.
Show Cinematic Nudity: Nope, General Gameplay Setting.
Make it a "Content" menu/tag somewhere(wich they did! It's just in here as well!)

How should the camera behave? This once again, is nice to have here. but it isn't directly related to being able to access a game. this'll be in controls. That's where we'll look for stuff like this

I can't sass about this, but look. Text Size sliders! A Imporant tool that we'll want later!

Audio settings, One makes everything mono, One flattens the audio a bit. This is nice to find here for people who have to deal with noise deafness/sensory overload(I do not know the proper english term, please enlighten me).

And then you'd expect UI stuff, Colourblind stuff, Reduced Flashing FX for those suffering with photosensitive epilepsy, UI TTS stuff, Contrast settings(for colours). There is more stuff that I cannot think of right now.

I"m just shouting on a cliff here at the gods. I'm a tiny lil blip on the internet and eh, people won't give a fuck, never have.

I'd like it, if more accessibility stuff became industry standard. Not just for me, I'm just bad eyes mcshoutybrain.
I'll deal with it, using hacky solutions that sorta work.
But that's how I go through life as well, See a sign i can't read? whip out the phone, zoom in. Can't recognize a person? Do a sorta awkward stare-wave.
Walked past a friend because i didn't recognize or hear them? Pull out imaginary ear pods and put them in my pocket. "Sorry was listening to music"
Because it's not somehow socially acceptible to not be able to do a thing even if you want to but physically fucking can't.

I play videogames to escape from this stuff, and it sucks to run into this shit constantly, developers going "We have Accessibility Options!, they are right there!" and it's the most bare-bones token effort bullshit. Difficulty options are not Accessibility(Lookin at you Horizon Forbidden West!) Wanting to hide content is not accessibility(sometimes it is but eh, it's arguably not in this case)

I don't play a lot of modern popular games lately, And next time you see a accesibility menu? take a look at the options there, see how much is padding for pandering. And the things that are missing.

Larian, I love your game, and your previous games. But ya gotta do better. I can't read shit in your game and community members going "Theres a mod for that!" doesn't help. this shit shouldn't be a mod. You might have half a million players, but there's games out there that have less than that. Set a example for other studios to follow.

And hey, If you're a indie dev or a small team looking for a UI/UX accessibility guy? HMU, I work for reasonable rates and I can put you in touch with a whole selection of people with various disabilities that want to enjoy videogames but can't because in some cases, the game might literally kill them.