Arachnophobia Accessibility is good, now let’s design better

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Content Warning: If you have severe arachnophobia, be aware that while there are no images of spiders in this article, there may be descriptive language about them or their environment in games (eg. thick webbing, movement), please skip this article at your discretion. All spiders were virtually harmed in the making of this article.

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With Halloween drawing near, many people with arachnophobia – like myself – are dreading the month of October. I don’t know which of the divine powers came up with the idea that spiders should exist, but our fascination with fear can make even a simple supermarket shopping trip, or MMO fetch quest, unbearable. Though they are kind of one in the same.

Games have come a long way in helping mitigate that. The recent introduction of arachnophobia settings in games, usually aims to replace or remove the model of the offending creature, without impacting gameplay. Examples of this include;

• Grounded turning the large looming arachnids in your shrunk down adventure, into nothing more than a couple of floating texture less blobs that look like unfinished Bamzooki models with glowing eyes
• Satisfactory turns so-called “stinger” enemies into more wholesome holographic models of developer’s cats
• Finally in World of Warcraft‘s recent The War Within expansion, you can instantly turn all spider-like mounts, enemies, and battle pets into crabs without having to reload your server – talk about carcinisation!

However, a game that advertises an arachnophobia mode actually makes me less likely to play it, rather than feeling accommodated and open to trying it. Let me explain.

 Fear Factor

Spiders are an extremely common phobia, being so ubiquitous that PEGI‘s (Pan-European Game Information ratings board) icon to indicate content that may be scary, or induce phobias, uses a top-down silhouette of a spider. Yet, you could apply the fear classification to any other phobia such as gore, motifs of undeath, or any other animal. According to a YouGov poll in January 2023, 1-in-5 (21%) of the UK population have arachnophobia with women being 10% more likely than men (16% of men vs 26% of women), being the second most common phobia behind heights.

So I can understand why game developers choose them as enemies. It’s hard to villanise a really tall mountain, or the sensation of falling really far, without using something like the PS5’s haptic feedback controller or VR. Most of the time in games if you fall from height you just respawn or its game over. But you can kill spiders endlessly for XP, loot, or the pure satisfaction of knowing there’s one less in the world – until they respawn.

What We Design in the Shadows

What I think is lost is all the things surrounding them. Sure you can lessen the actual jump scare moment of seeing the creature’s model, but the sound and environment are just important for the phobia fight or flight response to kick in. Due to unwilling repeated exposure, I’ve gained a sixth sense of my arachnophobia thanks to understanding the design language surrounding it, and what I need to do to react or mitigate it. This is the usual looking out for webbing in some cave or old dungeon crypt, checking the corners and ceilings before you keep moving, or listening out for wispy chittering or hissing. As soon as I see corpses in the webs or egg sacks, the long range weapons are out if I’m not already backtracking for the exit or quitting the game.
Arachnophobia is lucky in some regards because the environment can be a warning flag, but for others there isn’t a design language surrounding their phobias, the danger is already a present situation and you have to confront it.

But you know what doesn’t fit those design rules? 2004’s Hot Wheels: Stunt Track Challenge on PS2.
For the uninitiated, most of my childhood was spent on the Sony consoles going between rental stores and pre-owned games sections, with racing games taking up most of my time. I distinctly remember this rated E for everyone Hot Wheels game because there was no arachnophobia warning at all. Over the course of the game you go through different themes of circuits & mini-game challenges to progress, one of which was a generic insect & arachnid theme. The challenge that got me was a chasm jump where you have to use multiple platforms of track to get to the other side, like Frogger.

Being Proactive

However, because there had to be a challenge that tied into the theme, there were a couple tarantula-like models aiming to block your path across by jumping and dropping from the ceiling at random so you’re face to face with one until they jump out of the way, and if you fall, you clip through the models as your car falls into a void of webs until you respawn. I had to do this basically blindfolded even with PS2 era graphics because the jumpscare was too much.

Even the more recent Hot Wheels Unleashed games (also rated E for everyone) are just as bad if not worse. In these games there’s a custom track piece that has a web-spitting spider atop a loop, and because I don’t how frequently that piece is used within the tracks – regardless if they’re official or player made – I can’t play it. So why include them in the first place? Does it provide a meaningful change in the genre or allow for an interesting design space? Or does it serve as a cheap and generic source of fear designed to distract me from the core gamepaly?

Spooky, not Scary

Phobias are now a design issue, while I appreciate you can’t account for every niche fear, phobia settings and mods are important inclusion to any accessibility options. But developers need to have a wider view of phobias, taking into account the sound and environment within phobia settings, and ultimately asking the design question of if a source of phobia needs to be present at all. Sometimes the answer will be yes, but I hope there’s a change where the answer is more commonly no – leading to less things skittering in games, especially in genres where it provides no meaningful benefit.

Let us know in the comments some games that need better phobia settings! Have a happy, safe, and (hopefully) web-free Halloween!

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Finch

(they/them) Games Industry Community Manager hopping the fence to see the wider world of content creation and journalism. Queer, opinionated, and neurodivergent.

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