My work at Rebellion

At Rebellion I lead the accessibility initiative across the company and my role is made up of accessibility practice, education and advocacy. As the first and only accessibility dedicated role, I have helped shape the accessibility approach at Rebellion and pushed our games to new heights with Atomfall.

My passion for tabletop games led me to infiltrate Rebellion Unplugged, the board game arm of the company, where I have implemented a lot of studio-firsts and some industry-firsts for tabletop games accessibility.

Cari smiles at the camera, standing in front of a judge dredd and zombie army poster. She wears a necklace with the game accessibility icon on it.

Accessibility Impact

Accessibility Progress

For tangible progress on accessibility, comparing Sniper Elite 5 and Atomfall shows how much accessibility has grown between games. Atomfall is launching with more than 10 new features including massively impactful Controller Remapping, and Audio Aiming. It also includes a range of improved features and much accessibility by design.

Leading the Way

Rebellion became one of three companies to share accessibility information at announcement with Atomfall, alongside Ubisoft (Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown) and Whitethorn Games (Magical Delicacy). Rebellion also released a talk by Antonio Martinez, which illuminated consultancy and was an industry first for accessibility, as recognised in the GAConf 2023 US News Update.

Industry Recognition

Since I started in March 2022, Rebellion and its work has been nominated for six accessibility awards including Most Dedicated Publisher in the GAConf Awards 2024 and Innovation in Accessibility for Sniper Elite 5 at MCV Develop 2023.

Screenshot of Atomfall's accessibility page from it's main website, showing the game logo, the title Accessibility in Atomfall and a blurb paragraph on the game setting.

Games

A red phonebox sits in the middle of british countryside. A white logo reads Atomfall.
Karl, a sniper, aims a rifle to the right, behind him a war rages in the distance. A white logo reads Sniper Elite 5.
A cartoon car screeches across a green and blue background, other cars crashing behind. A pink and black logo read Joyride, Survival of the Fastest.

Practice

Subject Matter Expert

I am a subject matter expert of accessibility at Rebellion, a point of contact for all teams and developers if they have a question about accessibility. Being so requires being approachable, but doesn’t require being an encyclopaedia of accessibility knowledge! It’s okay not to have the answers on hand immediately, especially for complicated queries. But, if I don’t know the answer to a question, I know who to ask or what to research to find out.

Supporting the Team

I support teams as they develop projects from as early as possible, helping to guide accessibility efforts and provide holistic guidance on how to wrap accessibility into workflows. I create guidelines which help achieve accessibility by design and reducing costly retrofitting. I am also involved in and run project meetings and planning to help budget for larger-scale accessibility features. I work with everyone from stakeholders to juniors to support the needs of the team.

Documentation & Research

I create documentation, from design docs to competitor analysis to deep dives on accessibility features. Through this I’ve built a centralised accessibility resource for all developers that avoids information siloing, supported with extra information like useful links or notes on GAConf talks. Delivering reports with actionable and realistic tasks is a key skill, and I aim to prioritise tasks by accessibility impact and development cost.

Education

GAAD

For GAAD (Global Accessibility Awareness Day) I run a week of internal and external events including an expo where our developers can meet accessibility charities, consultants and gets hands-on with our latest accessibility features and external accessibility projects. We also have guest speakers, and run a social campaign, which in 2024 got nominated for Best Accessibility Resource at the GAConf Awards 2024.

Workshops & Training

I run create and training for staff, including an Inclusive Design Workshop which I created and have used to give fundamentals training to more than 100 developers at the company. I delivered a detailed talk on this workshop at GAConf Europe 2024 and GDC Online 2024: Weaving Accessibility into Workflows.

Accessibility Test Brief

I wrote an Accessibility Test Brief as part of Rebellion’s external education initiative, to help students and aspiring specialists to gain experience and portfolio material. This text brief was also nominated for Best Accessibility Resource at the GAConf Awards 2024.

A man sits at a desk playing Sniper Elite 5 with an Xbox adaptive controller and a variety of buttons and switches.

Advocacy

GDC

After my first year at Rebellion I delivered a talk at GDC 2023 about my first year setting up an accessibility programme at the studio. This talk details the initiatives I created, steps I took and some of the early impacts of this first year. It aims to help other developers get started with accessibility at their studio.

Accessibility Pages

Rebellion now has a dedicated accessibility page which I helped to create, and as part of that it features details on our games options and features to help players make informed decisions of if the game will support their needs.

Nothing About Us Without Us

While at Rebellion I have been able to participate in and run panels at events like EGX or Nothing Without Us with a mix of developers and accessibility consultants. This kind of collaboration helps us and the wider industry to learn from people with lived experience - an expertise that cannot be substituted.

Screenshot of Rebellion's accessibility webpage on their main site. The title of the page is Accessibility on a darkened background of various Rebellion games.
Five people on a stage engaged in a panel discussion in front of an audience, behind them is a screen with a slide showing each panellists photo and name, and with subtitles at the top.