Blind and visually impaired Hearthstone players have criticised the most recent Hearthstone update after it broke compatibility with a mod designed to make the game more accessible for them.The Hearthstone Access mod provides screen-reading tools for the game, as well as tools to slow the game down when playing against bots to give you more time to make decisions.Unfortunately, the mod’s solo developer GuideDev tweeted ahead of the August 30 update that they would be unable to update the mod until mid-September at the earliest, due to being on vacation. The lengthy gap has been a stark reminder for the Hearthstone community, who have taken to Reddit to decry Blizzard’s lack of official accessibility settings, and its overreliance on a single, seemingly volunteer developer to keep Hearthstone Access running.
On Reddit, users have criticised Blizzard for not having “diverted some resources to [make] the entire game accessible natively”, instead relying on “seemingly one person” who has “sacrificed so much of his free time to actually allow [players] in the blind community to play”. It has also been pointed out that other games have been further embracing accessibility in recent years, while Hearthstone has stubbornly remained lacking.
Other players have pointed out that this isn’t the first time Hearthstone Access has been broken by an update, with GuideDev often needing to take days to fix the mod following a new update – particularly if it includes new cards or extensive UI changes. While the community remains supportive of GuideDev for his unpaid work in keeping the mod up to date, these repeated outages for accessibility features have further fanned ire aimed at Blizzard and its apparent unwillingness to do it itself.
As for Hearthstone Access, the current aim is for the mod to be updated upon GuideDev’s return from vacation in “Mid-September”. A specific date has not been announced for this, but that does mean players could be without any way to play the game for at least another week.