James Toland, also known as Tolando77 on Twitch, has hit the highest division in FIFA 22, all while using the controller with his feet.
In his series of “FIFAFEET” streams, Toland had Division One in his sights from the onset and it’s an astonishing achievement to think of the hours and hours it took to reach this level of competition. I mean, he says it all in his celebratory Tweet here:
Toland is one of the countless disabled gamers who are changing the conventions on how games may be enjoyed by people from all walks of life with and without assistive technology. He has TAR syndrome which is a genetic disorder that leads to the absence of bone in the forearm. As a result, Toland doesn’t use his hands to play FIFA 22 and instead learned how to steer the sticks and hold the buttons with his feet.
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“Football is my passion in life. I was no Pele or Maradona on the football pitch at school, however I was really good at football computer games,” said the streamer in an interview with The Scottish Sun last year. “Sometimes I get a bit cocky as I’ll be playing then I’ll take a drink of tea from a cup using my hands at the same time to wind up folk, but that’s just when I’m playing against friends and family.”
Given that there are approximately 14 million people in the UK who have a disability, it’s disheartening to discover that accessibility options in games aren’t necessarily a priority during development. "Even if they can convince a game studio to consider closed captioning or button remapping, those features will likely be the first things to get scrapped when deadlines loom and developers start working 10- to 12-hour days to finish games,” explained journalist Jason Schreier.
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Significant steps have been taken over the last decade in the industry, like the Adaptive Controller from Xbox and the array of accessibility options in The Last Of Us Part 2. Still, Toland's awesome achievement was managed without any settings or assistive tech, and the fact that he caught EA’s attention as well as the praise of his fellow players is heartwarming to see.
Featured Image Credit: EA
