Apple makes a game-changing accessibility move &ndash literally for iOS games TechRadar Skip to main content TechRadar is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's why you can trust us. Apple makes a game-changing accessibility move &ndash literally for iOS games By Darren Allan published 9 June 2022 An Apple Accessibility plug-in has been introduced for the Unity game engine (Image credit: Apple) Audio player loading… Apple has taken a big step forward in terms of making gaming more accessible, having just released an open source plug-in for the Unity game engine that allows developers to tap into the assistive features of iOS. As introduced by Eric Liang, an Apple software engineer, in a video (opens in new tab) from the recent WWDC 2022 conference – hat tip to 'Can I Play That?' (opens in new tab) for spotting this one – the Apple Accessibility plug-in comes with all sorts of neat tricks for making games far more inclusive. For starters, there's the ability to incorporate VoiceOver, the screen reader tool in iOS, with games, allowing for on-screen text to be read out for the benefit of blind or low vision players, and also enabling custom gestures for game controls. Support is also present for Switch Control, so multiple external switches can be used for in-game controls. Then there's Dynamic Type Support, which gives developers the ability to change the size of the text in-game to match the user's specified text size from Settings, so it's bigger and more easily readable if needed. (Also, in an example Liang shows of a simple playing card game getting the benefit of the plug-in, the face values of the cards can be made larger in conjunction with the text, too – see the image at the top of this story). Further capabilities include the ability to increase contrast for better visibility of interface elements, or the power to reduce transparency of the background, making it opaque so text stands out better. Developers can get hold of the Apple Accessibility plug-in at Github (opens in new tab), and it's free to use. Analysis Apple is making commendable progress with accessibility Unity is a widely-used game engine, powering the likes of Hearthstone and Rust. While accessibility plug-ins have been available for Unity in the past, their third-party nature doesn't always make for the most reliable experience, as you might imagine. But with Apple bringing forth its own effort, we can expect a much more solid and well-supported plug-in going forward, and that's obviously great news for game developers using Unity who want to ensure their products are accessible across a wide audience of gamers. As the linked instructional Apple video shows, it's easy to implement these accessibility features in iOS games, and they can make a big difference in all sorts of ways. All this is part of a broader drive by Apple to improve accessibility, because as we've seen recently, iOS 16 is set to benefit from the likes of Live Captions, a Door Detection feature and more…Today's best Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (2021) dealsReduced Price (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$1,999 (opens in new tab)$1,599 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)Reduced Price (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$1,999 (opens in new tab)$1,599 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)Reduced Price (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$1,999 (opens in new tab)$1,824.95 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)Show More DealsWe check over 250 million products every day for the best pricesEnjoy gaming on your iPhone? Then you'll love these top games which are free Darren Allan Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013). See more Apple news TechRadar Newsletter Sign up to get breaking news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more, plus the hottest tech deals! Thank you for signing up to TechRadar. You will receive a verification email shortly. There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. 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