Xbox Accessibility Guideline 109: Objective clarity

Goal

The goal of this Xbox Accessibility Guideline (XAG) is to ensure that players always know what goals or objectives they're supposed to be working toward at any point during gameplay.

Overview

Games should ensure that players have an easy way to understand what they must currently do to progress through the game. Additionally, providing on-going progress overviews are key to supporting players. It can be difficult to remember the current objectives for a variety of reasons, including cognitive conditions that affect memory, attention, or distractibility, as well as situational circumstances like not having played the game recently. Some players might need a review of the game.

The ability to view game objectives and progress can help eliminate the need to memorize this information. Additionally, objective guidance and progress trackers can lessen the cognitive demands on players. Assessing game contexts and deriving appropriate next steps can be difficult for some players, especially when they're playing games with complex story lines or vague guidance. The ability to view prescriptive next steps can unblock players who are unsure of what they must do next to progress in the game.

Scoping questions

Consider the actions that players must take to successfully progress in your game. Is the game a “creative, open world,” a player versus player (PvP) game such as a sports match, or a game with a longer story line and established objectives? If the following apply to your game, it's important to ensure that objectives and progress tracking are available for player review.

• Does your game require completing “tasks” to progress (for example, players must travel to specific locations, “talk” to non-player characters (NPCs), or perform specific actions before progress can be made)?

• Does your game require prerequisites like the collection of objects to progress (for example, find 4/4 keys to unlock the gate to the next level, obtain all the items in a list to “craft” a new item or weapon needed to defeat a boss enemy)?

• How many things must players remember simultaneously?

• How long must this information be remembered for?

• Is remembering details of an ongoing narrative critical to gameplay?

• Does your game include large, complex environments?

Implementation guidelines

• Provide players with the ability to review tasks and objectives at any given time. Descriptions of tasks and objectives should be clear and straightforward.

• Include a log-style list of all the objectives and tasks that a player has completed to date.

• Provide options to enable waypoint or path markers, hints, or other reminders and directional cues for players when it appears that they've made no progress after a period of time (this varies by game/genre). These options could be included in difficulty presets.

• Provide the player a clear description of any progress made toward meeting prerequisites to progress through the game (for example, “15/20 skulls collected" or "3 of 5 hidden switches found”).

• Interruptions (like notifications or side quests) that aren't directly related to the objective at hand can be postponed or suppressed by the player.

• Provide the ability to revisit the game’s narrative (for example, the ability to replay cutscenes or view a written summary of the story thus far).

• Saved files should be descriptive. Ideally, they should contain a screenshot, a time stamp, and a brief summary of the player's current progress and objectives.

• Gameplay tutorials that explain or demonstrate core game mechanics should be made available for players.

  • Tutorials should be interactive, such as having the player carry out the game mechanics and controls being taught in the tutorial in a simulated or real gameplay environment or be provided in the form of video demonstrating the mechanics and controls for players to passively watch.

  • Static screens that display game controls or controller mappings are not sufficient and should not be considered a tutorial.

  • Tutorials should be available on-demand for players to access at any point in the game. For example, a tutorial may be a level within the game, or its own separate experience from primary gameplay, but players should be able to re-visit the tutorial at any point in the game, regardless of whether the tutorial has previously been completed.

  • Players should be provided an option to enable subtitles for tutorials with voiceover, character narration, or dialogue.

Potential player impact

The guidelines in this XAG can help reduce barriers for the following players.

Resources and tools