Rocket League Adds New Visual Setting After New Arena Causes Seizures
Last month, Rocket League introduced a new arena called Neon Fields as part of its season 2 update. Unfortunately, the lighting and effects of the map were causing epileptic players to have seizures. After complaints made to Psyonix, the developer finally announced plans to introduce accessibility options that tackle the issue.
In an upcoming update, Psyonix will add new effects settings specifically for the Neon Fields map. While there were a lot of suggestions about what needed to be done, the solution is actually very clear-cut.
“Based on recent player feedback, we’ve become aware that the effects and lighting in Neon Fields can negatively impact the game experience for some players,” reads a new update post. “To ensure that Rocket League remains enjoyable for all players, we’re adding a new settings option called “Effect Intensity” that adjusts the intensity and motion of visuals for this Arena.”
The new effect intensity setting has two options “default” and “low”. The default setting will not change any visual effects in Rocket League, but the low setting will make things less harsh for users with epilepsy. Setting effect intensity to low makes the following changes:
- Disables all pulsing effects
- Disables all flashing lights
- Reduces or disables moving FX/lights/background visuals
- Reduces brightness or intensity of background lights
Considering how serious seizures are, Psyonix made a glaring mistake releasing the Neon Fields arena without proper testing. Furthermore, players do not have the option to prevent loading matches onto specific maps, so this was a big problem. Fortunately, it only took a few weeks for the complaints to be heard and a solution has now been prepared. Sadly the update won’t go live until next week week.
Rocket League will receive the effect intensity feature within the next game update which is due February 1st 4pm EST. Until then, there is no certain way to avoid the Neon Fields arena from coming up in your matches.
