From offering the ability to customise your own island, to the relaxing atmosphere of fishing on a beach, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a highly requested game for us to help people to access this year.
Although the game does not have accessibility settings for us to describe, its slower pace could enable a range of players to access it. It does still require quite a lot of the controller inputs to be able to play, so we have compiled a list of the main game controls below for reference, dividing them into the different parts of the controller for the general controls, and we have also listed how these are used when swimming.
Please note that new seasonal updates may add extra features not covered below.
Joysticks
Left Stick & A (Bug Net held) = Slow Walk- used to slowly walk towards bugs
Left Stick = Move your character and navigate menus
Left Stick & B = Run
Right Stick = Move up and down to control the Camera. Enables you to look up at Balloons
Main Buttons
The Main Buttons, A, B, X, and Y are essential to gameplay as they open the main Pocket Menu and enable you to fish, collect items, shake trees, and shoot down balloons to name but a few. The Plus and Minus buttons are required to save the game, to occasionally confirm purchases or open Nook Miles + (when unlocked). They are less used but very important buttons for gameplay.
X = Pocket Menu
Y = Pick up/Rearrange Items in Options Menu
A = Select/ Action/Use Held Item
B = Cancel
Y = Rearrange Items in Options Menu
+ = Open Nook Miles +/Purchase (in store)/Confirm (when selling/donating items)
– = Save Game
Shoulder Buttons
The main use for the Shoulder Buttons for most players is to open the Nook Phone. If you are talking with friends in game, the messages option opens an on-screen keyboard where you can type to chat to friends either with the touchscreen or use the Left Joystick and confirm with A.
R = Opens Messages
L = Photo Filter
ZL = Opens Nook Phone
ZR = Opens Reactions Wheel
Directional/ D-pad
The D-pad is mainly used to navigate menus within the game and access items quickly. Within your home, the D-pad also enables you to access your storage, open a top-down view to rearrange furniture and change the lighting of the room.
Up = Y Ring/Navigate Menus (within the home, it will change lighting)
Down = Cancel/Away/Navigate Menus (within the home, it will enable you to rearrange furniture)
Left = Swap Held Item/Navigate Menus
Right = Swap Held Item/Navigate Menus (within the home, it will open storage)
Swimming
With the Summer update, the sea has been opened for exploring. Wear your favourite swimsuit and go diving for new creatures. There’s an ocean out there to explore, and you can explore it more quickly by pressing A to swim faster. You can even dive for treasure, and by treasure, we mean sea creatures to house in your Museum.
Left Stick = Swim slowly.
Right Stick = Controls the Camera.
X = Main Menu
Y = Dive
A = To enter Sea/Swim faster/Select
B = Cancel
We hope that listing these controls has been useful for reference. If you have any questions, please visit the ‘Contact Us’ page.
Developer Resource:
For more video examples of how developers have improved the motor accessibility of their games, please visit https://specialeffectdevkit.info/
