Spyro: Reignited Trilogy is out now, and it's a gorgeous remake of the beloved PSone platformers. While many are enjoying their time with Spyro and Sparx, some are left flabbergasted by the apparent lack of subtitles across the three games. Some minor characters in the games have them, but the main cutscenes don't, leaving those with hearing disabilities out in the cold.
Gaming blog Gamepitt reached out to Activision regarding the omission, and received a short statement on the matter. Here's what the publisher had to say:
“When Toys For Bob set out to make an awesome game collection, there were certain decisions that needed to be made throughout the process. The team remained committed to keep the integrity and legacy of Spyro that fans remembered intact. The game was built from the ground up using a new engine for the team (Unreal 4), and was localized in languages that had not previously been attempted by the studio. While there’s no industry standard for subtitles, the studio and Activision care about the fans’ experience especially with respect to accessibility for people with different abilities, and will evaluate going forward.”
It's unclear from this whether Toys for Bob will implement subtitles with a patch or not. It's unusual to find a game that doesn't have an option for subtitles -- many even have them on by default. Hopefully, if enough people want them, Activision will make it happen.
Are you affected by the lack of subtitles in Spyro: Reignited Trilogy? Get all fired up in the comments below.
[source gamepitt.co.uk, via dualshockers.com]
Comments 29
Surprised they didn't blame Sony for it. Everyone else seems to want too these days.
what do they mean by "no industry standard" when other games allow me to play with japanese audio and english subtitles???????
I play everything with subtitles, so this is good to know. I want to play this sometime - hopefully it’ll get patched in. This is probably a spring/summer 2019 game for me anyway.
Pathetic, just patch it in already, hurry up and get it done. Disgraceful cheapskates.
"Hopefully, if enough people want them, Activision will make it happen," shouldn't even be the thought. Those with hearing disabilities need to be taken care of for all games and this was a big oversight.
So Sony didn't put a gun to their head is what they mean? Because that's the only way to make it more of a standard than it already is.
Sony should have a policy about putting the entire game on the disc though.
Wow. Just... wow.
Although sometimes a big, high profile instance like this is what's needed to draw attention to the fact that, indeed, there are no industry standards for these kinds of issues; there absolutely should be.
We can no longer rely on common sense and decency, apparently. Welcome to the 21st Century.
Just because there is no industry standard does not mean you should be excluding members of the gaming community.
Thanks for writing this article up for awareness Stephen!
I have relatives that are deaf and they can't enjoy the game to its fullest because of the lack of subtitles.
They don't know what is being said in the cutscenes and despite their awesome ability to lip read well, it's a lot harder to read from an animated dragons mouth.
This should be an industry standard.
I work for Europe's largest TV distribution company and the creation of subtitles/closed captions is a mandatory requirement from production companies.
It's not like Activision is a tiny company with limited resources.
The only thing I don't like about this game!
I absolutely turn on subtitles in every game, first thing I do...it's stupid that in 2018 a game doesn't have any
Oh, come on! Why would anyone leave the subtitles out? They're a must for deaf people, and they help a lot international gamers understand what is being said. I always turn them on before even starting a game...
No industry standard?
Of all the crappy excuses. I can't even remember the last game I bought that didn't have subtitles. This is just ignorance from them and symptomatic of the modern way of release now and fix later, it's not as if something like Red Dead has 12 languages and a lot more dialogue
Is there any sentence here that makes sense with regards to the subtitles?
"When Toys For Bob set out to make an awesome game collection, there were certain decisions that needed to be made throughout the process."
Like purposely not putting in subtitles?
"The team remained committed to keep the integrity and legacy of Spyro that fans remembered intact."
Because the integrity and the legacy of Spyro fans wouldn't be intact if the game added optional subtitles.
"The game was built from the ground up using a new engine for the team (Unreal 4)"
Which should make it easier to put in subtitles compared to porting the original game. But, yeah.
"and was localized in languages that had not previously been attempted by the studio."
Because you added in other voices, subtitles were impossible? I don't know how this relates.
"While there’s no industry standard for subtitles"
Give me the name of one other Activision game released in the last five years that does not have subtitles. But, Spyro apparently, is different from those games.
"the studio and Activision care about the fans’ experience especially with respect to accessibility for people with different abilities"
Well, apparently not. Because you did add in never existing languages, but not subtitles. (Also notice how they use 'fans' to describe non-deaf gamers, but gamers with a hearing impairment are 'people'. I know it might seem like not much of a deal, but I think the difference between 'speaking to' and 'talking about' is important with these kind of things.)
If you add it all up it amounts to a mighty fine middle finger towards anyone with a hearing impairment. Just say "sorry, this was a miscalculation on our part, we might look into the possibilities", instead of digging a deeper hole.
Anyway, on a more positive note this will probably result in subtitles after all. So, that's something.
Such an odd omission.
It is a blunderous oversight to be sure. But the main issue I have is the fact they have used PR jargon to try and make excuses for themselves and only given a half promise to fix.
They should have said, “Sorry, we messed up. We apologise to all our fans who cannot enjoy our game because of this and we will fix it immediately.”
I wasn't even aware of this as I am still waiting for it to download but as a partly deaf person this surprises and disappoints me.I have subtitles turned on for everything these days,games,films,shows on Netflix for obvious reasons and these days there really isant any excuse for subtitles not to be included.
I'd respect them more if they'd just said "we forgot" or "we couldn't be bothered". Well, maybe not that last one.
@Kidfried Excellent picking apart of their nonsense statement, well done
@Wazeddie22 I was honestly about to post something along the lines as your post before I came to your comment. I’m also partly deaf and if there’s a movie or programme on Netflix, TV or DVD that doesn’t have subtitles I wouldn’t watch it all because I know I wouldn’t be able to fully understand what’s going on or being said. My wife who isn’t deaf at all even watches everything in subtitles, even when I’m not in the room, some actors may have strong accents that a person with perfect hearing may struggle to make out what was being said.
On topic, other than this Spyro trilogy and Alone in the Dark, I can’t name any other game off the top of my head that had no subtitles, when Activision said “there’s no industry standard for subtitles” they could of fooled me since almost every game I’ve played since the PS2 and OG Xbox days, games had some form of subtitles whether it was in cut-scenes and/or gameplay.
I’ve finished the first couple of worlds in the first Spyro and I’ve not even noticed that it was lacking subtitles till I read this article. I suppose I’ve been enjoying the game too much to even notice or care but I agree with others that in this day and age everything from movies and games should have the option for those of us who wish to use subtitles.
this is ffffffffffffff annoying somone that suffers from hearing difficulties especially in video games i always have the subtitles on. yeah they are modern invention what around well since begining of bloody films. cut fffffff corners more like. so none of the skylander games had subtitles then.
I always have the subtitles on as i sometimes zone out on conversations in video games, i just can't believe that puting in subtitles is that hard. It should be step 1 in making a video game, so nobody gets left out
Subtitles to be added as paid DLC later. A special 130.00 season pass unlocks Bobby Kotick as the final boss
This still feels like a big rush job to be fair. The whole thing with the delay and only one game being on disc. It all sounds like they were working under pretty strict deadlines.
That's a pretty bad way to put it. There's no industry standard for most things in gaming....
Just because it wasn't in the dev plan or budget doesn't mean it should be brushed under the rug as "a strange request'. Just admit it wasn't part of the project and that you'll consider it for future projects and move on.
That's probably why there's no HDR and the disc is only 31GB.
I guess they don't know what HDR is or how to master a disc...
Finishing a game and putting all of it on disc is apparently alot of work.
English is my second language and I play all games with English subtitles turned on because it's often hard to understand every spoken word especially without headphones on. Games for a younger audience such as this one have simpler English, but it's still really unique not to have subs even in only one language. And their response? What a joke. The industry standard is definitely to have subtitles in more than one language and there hasn't been a game without them that I encountered in my whole life…
Do you recollect any?
I'm affected by this quite deeply. This is a game I've been really looking forward to playing but now I can't. As someone that is profoundly deaf in both ears, subtitles are extremely important for me. Without them it would be like watching a movie or playing a game without any voice audio for anyone with normal hearing. I've tried to play games in the past that didn't have subtitles and no matter how good the gameplay was, the game just didn't feel good to play. There was no enjoyment in the story or anything when I couldn't understand what was going on. I've got a cochlear implant in one ear just a couple years ago and even though that made a big difference for me, I still have the struggle of understanding anything being said on the TV without the subtitles.
I really hope the developers will consider adding subtitles because without it, it feels like an incomplete game that I can never enjoy or support. So I've been left with no choice but to pass on this one. No matter how fun the gameplay is, I'm still missing out and the game just isn't for me.
Activision doesn't seem to care much for those of us with poor hearing. I noticed this with Destiny 2 when it comes to the Raids also. I couldn't take part in it as the Raids required communication. Really not liking the company these days for how poorly they treat us.
no industry standard? i can't even remember the last time i saw a game that DIDN'T have subtitles
I just discovered this fact tonight and guess what, I'm hard of hearing, and a bit pissed cause I can't understand what's said in the game. I love spyro, the games on PS3 & Wii had subtitles. So WTH guys, new software or not, it's not really an excuse of industry standard, cause just about every other game out there does subtitles... and as a result, that is the defacto industry standard. Nice try though. However I worry, y'all are gonna end up pissing off people like me & may have a class action lawsuit on the horizon over discrimination because of it. Not saying me specifically but I know some hard core deaf/huh gamers that could be in the group of those who'd consider doing just that... Hope a patch comes through before that happens.
I was really looking forward to playing Spyro again... now I can't help but be deflated as I can't even lipread the animations!
Tap here to load 29 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...