A few days ago, GuideDev, creator of the Hearthstone Accessibility mod "Hearthstone Access", announced that he was going to be sunsetting the mod due to the work that was required to maintain it patch to patch. We originally posted about Hearthstone Access over a year ago when it first made its debut.

This evening, Blizzard has prepared a statement about Hearthstone Access and how they are going to be shifting resources into making Hearthstone more accessible to all. Here's what they said:

  • In the Lich King Patch, a new volume option is coming to allow the game to support Mono Sound.
  • In that same patch, we will be able to adjust sound channels independently instead of one global volume slider.
  • They want to get Blind and Low Vision players to get back into the game with native support.
  • Blizzard would like to hear feedback about accessibility and can be contacted at [email protected].
  • These improvements will take time and Hearthstone will not be accessible until they are made.

You can read Blizzard's full post down below, and further that we have GuideDev's message announcing the discontinued mod.

Quote From GnomeSayin

Hello all,

Some of you might be familiar with HearthstoneAccess, a wonderful third-party accessibility mod that’s been a great way for blind and low vision players to play Hearthstone. We’ve been in constant communication with GuideDev, its developer, and have implemented measures to make development of the mod easier. We’re big fans of their work!

We’ve also been working on improvements to Hearthstone’s native accessibility, with the aim of complementing the functionality that HearthstoneAccess provided. For example, the combination of Hearthstone’s music, sound effects, character dialog, and tavern ambience (the voice murmurs in the background) can conflict with the audibility of screen-reading software trying to convey the state of the game. We know there may be a number of reasons why a player might want to adjust these different channels independently, whether that’s needing to focus on particular noises, finding certain sounds distracting, or simply preferring a different audio balance than what is default. In a patch after March of the Lich King launches, we’re adding expanded Audio Settings to support separate volume controls for each of these, along with an option for Mono Sound.

With HearthstoneAccess mod support ending, we’ve made the decision to shift our work in this area—instead of working on accessibility features that complement HearthstoneAccess, we’ll be exploring what it will take to implement native accessibility features that allow for our blind and low vision community to get back into the game. We’re incredibly appreciative of everything that GuideDev has done for our community and we’re very excited to continue expanding our game’s accessibility.

A project of this magnitude and importance will take time to complete. We’re very sorry to our friends and players who won’t have access to Hearthstone during this time. If you have further accessibility feedback, you can contact us at [email protected]. That feedback is sent directly to the game teams, and while we can’t reply to all the messages we receive, they help us prioritize our development so that we’re working on what matters most to our players.

Once again, thank you to GuideDev and to all our players in the blind and low vision communities. We’ve been encouraged by so many players coming together to show their support for this issue and look forward to sharing more details with you once we have them.


GuideDev's Original Message

Quote From GuideDev

Sunsetting Hearthstone Access

Hello everyone. Guide Dev here.

After a year and a half of Hearthstone Access, I'm sad to announce that version 24.6 will be the last major version of Hearthstone I'll be able to support.

I'm hoping to release 24.6 later today so you'll still be able to play for a while longer. However, once the next major patch lands, I will no longer be updating Hearthstone Access to work with the newer version. I'm not entirely sure on when that'll be, but I'm assuming it'll happen on a Tuesday between now and December 6 as that's the planned release date for the new expansion.

I know a lot of players will be sad to hear this. Please know that I am sad too and that I do not make this decision lightly. I deeply appreciate the community built around Hearthstone Access and I hope you've enjoyed playing the game over these past 15 months as much as I've enjoyed watching everyone play it.

This was the first time I worked on anything accessibility-wise and I truly loved the process. Watching someone play and interact with a blind-accessible interface you've just designed for the first time as a sighted developer is immensely rewarding. I really hope Hearthstone Access serves as an example of how even complex, chaotic games such as Battlegrounds can be made blind-accessible - and fun - for many years to come.

Having said that, carrying Hearthstone Access on my back all this time has become increasingly difficult and the time has come for me to take a step back. I really, really hate to be doing this, but the last few months have been extremely busy and I've been seriously struggling to keep up with everything.

Hearthstone Access has been suffering with this as well as I simply don't have as much time as I once had to devote to it. With all the recent (and upcoming) changes, it's gotten to a point where I think Hearthstone Access is just getting worse with every patch (while Hearthstone itself is getting better). This was never the intention - and I'm really not happy with it.

I'll see if I can write a proper retrospective at some point. For now though, I just wanted to give everyone a heads up as I know a lot of players depend on me updating Hearthstone Access in order to play the game and I don't want people to be pre-purchasing content for the new expansion if they don't have other means of accessing it.

Thanks for all the support.

Guide Dev