The latest edition of JustDance will allow people in wheelchairs to be able to let loose on the dance floor.
Started in 2009, the saga JustDance made the good years of motion gaming. This fashion, initiated by the Nintendo Wii, quickly gave birth to a multitude of titles that have become notable thanks to their fun and original game mechanics.
If the Ubisoft franchise now has more than 135 million players around the world, it is unfortunately not within everyone’s reach. A situation that the French studio decided to rectify with the recent release of the 2024 edition of JustDance.
When Ubisoft makes JustDance a wheelchair accessible game
Our colleagues from BBC recently had the opportunity to speak with 14-year-old Seth Burke. Suffering from a disability which prevents him from moving like the majority of young people his age, he was invited to Ubisoft’s Parisian premises to try out the latest version of JustDance.
For the first time since its debut, Ubisoft’s successful license includes a dancer in a wheelchair, thus allowing people in the same situation to be able to perform the dozens of choreographies offered by the title.
To do this, the Ubisoft teams took care to readapt the dance movements so that they can be perfectly reproduced by people in wheelchairs. The player must then follow the arm movements while holding their phone or controller. Moreover, Seth was able to try out the title alongside Florent Devlesaver, the Belgian dancer who appears in the game.
Obviously, we can only encourage you to consult the BBC report to discover the sequences of JustDance played by the young teenager.
Accessibility, a theme that is finally evolving in video games
Although there are still many efforts to be made, it is clear that accessibility in video games has evolved considerably over the last five years. If Microsoft has already marketed the Xbox Adaptive Controller, a controller adapted to individuals with disabilities, Sony should soon do the same with the arrival of its Access controller.
But in addition to hardware, the two manufacturers also make a lot of effort to ensure that their first-party titles offer a wide choice of features adapted to people with disabilities. For exemple, The Last of Us Part II offered no less than 60 accessibility options.
Since dance is not the most wheelchair accessible field, it is good to see that Ubisoft is keen to move the boundaries when it comes to video games. As a reminder, Just Dance 2024 has been available on Nintendo Switch, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S since October 24.
Source : BBC
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