Nintendo Switch 2‘s accessibility features were absent from the April Nintendo Direct, but the company posted a brief overview on the console’s website soon after. While the original Switch’s features went little further beyond the choice to change the system’s button mapping, Switch 2 includes several options under a dedicated “accessibility” submenu in the settings section.
Here, you can change button mapping, but also increase or decrease text size and implement bold font to make text stand out. Switch 2 lets you save button-mapping presets and add the feature to the “quick settings” menu that opens when you hold the home button, though Nintendo didn’t show how many configurations you can save to one account.
The next setting changes the system’s display colors. The default color scheme seems to be a white background with black text, and you can choose “invert colors” for a black background with white text and orange highlights or “grayscale.” The accessibility menu also includes a zoom toggle that, when active, lets you tap the home button twice to zoom in on a selected spot. You can then move the zoomed-in screen around with one of the Joy-Con control sticks.
Nintendo Switch 2 – Official System Overview Trailer
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The Switch 2 launches with four text and audio accessibility options, one of which toggles audio to monoaural output. Text-to-speech will read text from the home and system settings menu, along with cursor placements, and lets you customize reader voices. Nintendo didn’t say whether any of its first-party games, such as Donkey Kong Bananza, will support text-to-speech.
The last two options let you convert voiced speech to text or written text to voice when using the Switch 2’s GameChat feature.
In the last five years, Sony and Microsoft have released adaptive controllers for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. These accessories come with customizable layouts and additional attachments so players with, for example, cerebral palsy or quadriplegia who struggle to hold a traditional controller can still enjoy their games. Nintendo hasn’t released a similar controller for its systems, and the Switch 2 accessibility overview made no mention of plans to do that for the new console.