A Helldivers 2 player has been left "disheartened" to find the shooter's anti-cheat gets in the way of their accessibility tools as fans rally around them.
On April 1, Steven Spohn - COO of Able Gamers and disability advocate - took to Twitter to share his experience playing the Arrowhead Games title while relying on accessibility tools. "I am very disheartened by my experience with @helldivers2," Spohn writes. "In order to play video games I use an infrared hat to relay movements I make with my head into keyboard presses. Helldivers 2 blocks the program from input. I have not met a game yet that blocks my hat, until now."
"But even worse, they also block Dragon NaturallySpeaking-My dictation program that allows me to use my voice to speak to my computer, and Comfort on-screen keyboard-a virtual keyboard that allows the mouse to push keyboard keys," the tweet continues. Explaining why this is happening, Spohn adds: "Effectively, an anti-cheat protocol is blocking assistive technology inputs from being read by the game. I don't have a solution for this."
I am very disheartened by my experience with @helldivers2. In order to play video games I use an infrared hat to relay movements I make with my head into keyboard presses. Helldivers 2 blocks the program from input. I have not met a game yet that blocks my hat, until now.But…April 1, 2024
To finish, Spohn says he wants to reach out to Arrowhead and work with them to get these things fixed, not just for himself but also for other players who also rely on similar accessibility tools and programs. "Anyone who needs any of those kinds of assistive technologies will not be able to liberate any democracy," he adds.
Thankfully, it didn't take long for the Helldivers 2 community to throw their support behind Spohn. Very soon after the tweet was published, it made its way to the game's dedicated subreddit, where several other fans have also shared their support in the comments causing it to gain over 15,000 upvotes and jump to the top of the forum - hoping to catch Arrowhead's attention.
Although incredibly heartwarming, the Reddit post wasn't necessarily needed as Arrowhead CEO and Helldivers 2 director, Johan Pilestedt, replied to Spohn's tweet: "I will look into this. But I need to know what software you use." From here, the two decide to chat about the issue via DM - hopefully marking the start of better accessibility support for Helldivers 2.
Shoot me a DM. I'll send you one.April 2, 2024
In other news, Helldivers 2's new Automaton Gunships are very real and here to obliterate Super Earth’s forces from the skies.
Planning to get into the shooter soon? take a look at our Helldivers 2 tips to get started.
