We’ve shed some light on some unique approaches to arachnophobia methods in video games as they’ve started to become more common in recent years, but nothing like Call of Accountability: Dark Ops 6’s pristine method. Activision’s response for good measure or the hard way makes everything even scarier by stealing the legs of his zombie spiders and turning them into something possibly worse.
“For the first time in Black Ops 6 Zombies, a new arachnophobia toggle feature will be available,” Activision writes in a post describing Dark Ops 6’s excellent accessibility options on its blog. “This setting will allow players to change the appearance of spider-like enemies in Zombies without affecting their gameplay.”
All of which sounds completely affordable and great. After all, arachnophobia methods are far from atypical at this point, although their approaches are rarely the same. Developer Espresso Stain opted to replace the spiders with cute cat images in Ample, like Obsidian’s Grounded, a game admittedly rife with problems, which allowed players to dial the details of the spiders up to the “harmless circle.” Dragon Beyond: Veilguard’s solution, meanwhile, is a bit more scorched earth, simply removing the spider humans from the game entirely.
Dark Ops 6 developer Treyarch’s response to spider disease, on the other hand, is something else entirely, as the studio is said to have taken Obsdian’s ‘floating blob’ solution as its opening point by removing the legs of his zombie arachnids and, closer, carefully, preventing there. What could be of high quality if the result were a species of huge mutated shrimp? Sperm?! – It was not, by hook or by crook, more terrifying. Still, I guess at least the nightmares won’t be spider nightmares.
Elsewhere in its post, Activision highlights some interesting original accessibility features for the Call of Accountability order, including the Refund Asymmetric Listening Settings, which allows players to create custom audio profiles and adjust independent settings for each ear. Which, speaking as someone who’s had unbalanced listening since their formative years and ran into a puddle, is something I’d definitely love to see more games make.
Dark Ops 6 also includes an expanded version of Top Distinction designed to help players with optical impairments or color blindness by allowing them to toggle a ‘twilight background’ atmosphere or customize defined colors for allies and enemies. This, of course, turned out to be a shock to some players at first and then they switched to the nearest game and discovered that they were all blue.
Additionally, Dark Ops 6 delivers what Activision is asking for from Clever Motion, which is supposed to help players with mobility issues free up inputs by minimizing and customizing button and lever processes. This includes excellent HUD customization options, allowing you to switch between sequence presets and change minimap colors, plus support for the Xbox Adaptive Controller and Sony Access to the controller. It is now also possible to remain idle and save solo Zombie attacks.
Disclaimer: Dark Ops 6 is now available for PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series Game Pass. It will be ruthless during Microsoft subscription provider week.
