One community developer was single-handedly keeping Hearthstone accessible to blind and visually impaired players, but now they're stepping away - and after a community outcry, Blizzard is finally stepping in to investigate an official solution.
"With Hearthstone Access mod support ending, we’ve made the decision to shift our work in this area," a Blizzard community manager says in a forum post. "Instead of working on accessibility features that complement Hearthstone Access, we’ll be exploring what it will take to implement native accessibility features that allow for our blind and low vision community to get back into the game."
There's no timeline on when those features will be implemented, but Blizzard says it's not a small undertaking. "We’re very sorry to our friends and players who won’t have access to Hearthstone during this time. If you have further accessibility feedback, you can contact us at [email protected]."
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An anonymous developer who goes by GuideDev online has been working on Hearthstone Access for over a year now. The mod essentially gives Hearthstone screen reader functions across many modes. Technically, use of a mod like this could be considered a bannable offense for altering the game, but Blizzard has been pretty supportive of Hearthstone Access, even providing early information to GuideDev about which parts of the mod will need changing to stay compatible with further Hearthstone updates.
Unfortunately, those updates continued to be necessary because the game's patches keep breaking Hearthstone Access. Every new patch meant that GuideDev had to fix Hearthstone Access for compatibility, and that endless grind has gotten to be too much.
"Carrying Hearthstone Access on my back all this time has become increasingly difficult and the time has come for me to take a step back," GuideDev said in a Github post last week. "I really, really hate to be doing this, but the last few months have been extremely busy and I've been seriously struggling to keep up with everything."
Players making use of Hearthstone Access have been very understanding of GuideDev's decision to step away, but they stepped up pressure on Blizzard for Hearthstone accessibility features in the wake of the news, creating petitions and campaigning on social media for an official solution.
Now that solution is finally coming, though it may still be some time away. For now, GuideDev is telling Blizzard they're "happy to hear and very much looking forward to seeing it come to life. Feel free to reach out if you ever need my help."
Blizzard concludes its announcement by saying "thank you to GuideDev and to all our players in the blind and low vision communities. We’ve been encouraged by so many players coming together to show their support for this issue and look forward to sharing more details with you once we have them."
We can deal you some excellent games like Hearthstone.
