(Credit: René Ramos, Will Greenwald; Nintendo; aamiansyah, Andy March / Adobe Stock)
The Nintendo Switch 2 has increased processing power, a larger 120Hz screen, and 4K HDR video. These are arguably its most attractive features, but the console contains many more upgrades than just these. The most helpful? The system has several useful accessibility options to assist people living with audio, visual, motor, or vocal difficulties. I explored the Switch 2's accessibility options at a prelaunch system showcase and am here to walk you through them so you're ready to play Mart Kart World and other launch games.
How to Access the Switch 2's Accessibility Settings
(Credit: Nintendo)The Switch 2's Accessibility menu is located in the System Settings menu, which you can access by selecting the gear icon at the bottom of the home screen.
Once there, you'll find the Accessibility menu positioned between the Parental Controls and Data Management options. It opens the door to many useful features, highlighted below.
1. Enlarged Text Size
(Credit: Nintendo)If you're having trouble reading text on the Switch 2, you can make a few helpful visual changes to make things easier. Nintendo offers two larger text sizes beyond the default Standard setting, and a separate boldness toggle that makes the letters thicker.
2. Pan and Zoom Options
Just making the text bigger might not be enough to make the Switch 2's text legible. If you find yourself squinting, regardless of the text size, you should enable the console's zoom feature. With it turned on, you double-press the Home button to activate zoom. Then you can pan across the screen or zoom in and out using the Joy-Con's X and Y buttons.
3. Inverted Colors and Grayscale
Do you live with color blindness? The Switch 2 lets you completely invert the colors or make everything grayscale. These options might help you better see what you’re playing, but that depends on a few factors. There are multiple forms of colorblindness, with red-green deficiency the most common and total lack of color vision (achromatopsia) the rarest. Due to the condition's variations and how games use color to identify objects and interface elements differently, it's difficult to tell if either setting will help.
It's good that the options are available, though more granular colorblind accessibility features can be seen in titles like Marvel Rivals and Monster Hunter Wilds, which have specific settings for deuteranope, protonope (both versions of red-green colorblindness), and tritanope (blue-green, purple-red, and yellow-pink color combination colorblindness).
4. Text to Speech (On Screen)
(Credit: Nintendo)For significant vision impairment where the above settings might not be enough to understand text on the screen, the Switch 2 has a screen reader feature. It reads aloud on-screen text and provides additional audible assistance about the menu cursor position. It has a few different voices, and two sliders for tweaking speech speed and volume.
5. Speech to Text (In GameChat)
If you want to explore the new GameChat feature but have difficulty hearing people, check out the speech-to-text option. With it enabled, you can toggle a window that appears on the side of your game. There, you'll see a transcription of what you and your friends are saying.
6. Text to Speech (In GameChat)
(Credit: Nintendo)This is a different text-to-speech feature than the screen reader, and it's helpful if you have difficulty speaking. It lets you type in text, which will be read aloud in GameChat. There's an on-screen keyboard, but you can connect a USB keyboard for faster input.
7. Button Remap Options
The original Switch let you change button mapping and save control presets in Settings, but the menu has been moved to the Accessibility tab with the Switch 2. You can also add it to the Quick Settings screen and reach it at any time by holding the Home button down. This is useful if you're not comfortable with a game's default button layout, and is especially helpful if you have motor difficulties that can make hitting certain buttons awkward or painful.
In addition, you might want to consider buying the Switch 2 Pro Controller, which has two programmable rear buttons for more layout options.
More on the Nintendo Switch 2
There's plenty more to know about the new Nintendo system. Find out whether your favorite Switch 1 games will run on Switch 2 and if it's worth upgrading. And keep an eye on PCMag for our ongoing Switch 2 launch coverage, including our review!