It's probably just an accident of scheduling, but this deeply affecting documentary is arriving just when there's a debate raging at the school gates about children's use of smartphones and social media. So while it's undoubtedly troubling how tech platforms set out to addict and exploit young minds, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin provides a fascinating counterargument about how online gaming at least can be a lifeline for some individuals who find themselves isolated in the real world, or IRL as the kids like to say. Born in 1989, Mats Steen started out like many other Norwegian children of his generation: energetic, sweet-natured, unusually pale. However, his parents Robert and Trude soon discovered that he had Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic condition that eroded his ability to move and breathe and which would eventually kill him at the age of 25. By that point in 2014, Robert, Trude and Mats' sister Mia knew that Mats spent hours of his life online playing World of Warcraft using special equipment to accommodate his disability and had been publishing a blog about his life.

It's also worth noting: "The Last of Us Part II's" engine, built with accessibility in mind, is right there. The engine allowed "Part II" a level of accessibility unprecedented before in triple-A games, with more than 60 different features ranging from motor options to turn melee combos into holds, navigational assistance and high contrast displays, to various vibration settings and input remapping. It was considered a groundbreaking achievement for accessibility in the industry, and many of these options are being carried over into the "The Last of Us Part I" remake. Sony recently announced the full slate of accessibility options on offer in the remake. In that same blog post, the developer called "The Last of Us Part II's" accessibility features a "baseline" on which it built the remake.

The video game "The Last of Us Part II" is already proven to be a hit for the Sony PlayStation 4. But for some gamers, the much-hyped release means more – the cinematic thriller breaks new ground with features that make it easier for disabled players to play along. As video game consoles have evolved, developers have been able to design games that are more accessible."Gears And tech hardware such as Microsoft's Xbox Adaptive Controller, released in 2018, has also made games easier to play for those with a disability. Game developers have also begun soliciting the advice of disabled gamers to make their titles more accessible for the 46 million or so gamers in the U.S. alone who are disabled, according to researchers at the AbleGamers charity, a non-profit that advocates for and assists gamers who are disabled. "The Last of Us Part II," released last month ($59.99, "I can say they definitely raised the bar," said AbleGamers founder and executive director Mark Barlet. Sony-owned studio that created the game and others such as the Uncharted series, set out to address issues faced by the disabled. In 2016's "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End," the designers made it easier to make moves on a controller for those with motion limitations. A year later, the studio invited disability advocate and game consultant Brandon Cole, who is blind, to speak to developers there as development on "The Last of Us Part II' was beginning.

More than 33 million people in North America play videogames with some kind of disability, ranging from colorblindness to missing limbs, according to AbleGamers, a nonprofit that pushes for more accessibility in the videogame industry. "Social media has made a huge impact on being able to spread awareness of our mission and to gain support," said Craig Kaufman, program director at AbleGamers, which worked with Microsoft on developing its specialized controller. Even so, accommodations for disabled gamers still aren't yet the norm, according to Ian Hamilton, an independent consultant who specializes in helping developers make games more inclusive. For such folks, "buying games can often be a lottery," he said. In recent years, game companies increasingly have added accessibility features, such as letting players remap buttons on controllers to suit their needs. In some games, it is possible for visually impaired players to alter the colors of characters, or for those who can't hear on-screen dialogue to turn on subtitles.

BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat's Gaming Reporter Steffan Powell has been given exclusive access to the new device and met some of those it's designed to help.