The Outer Worlds Is Colorblind-Friendly By Design, Cites Co-Game Director’s Color Blindness As Inspiration
Though The Outer Worlds does not have a colorblind mode, it was designed to be inherently accessible to players with color blindness.
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Obsidian’s newly-released The Outer Worlds does not have a colorblind mode, but it was designed to be inherently accessible to players with color blindness. This design decision, which was inspired heavily by the fact that two of the game’s directors are colorblind, has been met with great appreciation. However, it appears that there remains a bit of contention around its effectiveness.
One big factor to consider in game design involves taking disabilities into account and the effect this can have on whether or not someone with a handicap can actually play the game as intended or not. For example, colorblind players can be disadvantaged when it comes to playing certain games that rely on players to scrutinize their surroundings.
“Colorblind” is a broad term that covers a handful of different visual impairments concerning a person’s ability to distinguish between colors. For example, red-green color blindness refers to the two more common types of colorblindness, protanomaly and deuteranomaly, and is generally characterized by a difficulty distinguishing between reds, greens, oranges, and browns.
Since video games are so heavily reliant on players’ sense of vision – including their ability to tell objects apart depending on their color – it’s not surprising that playing games can become an infuriating experience for those with colorblindness.
Game developers are trying to make games that are more widely accessible, which means thinking up innovative ways of compensating for disabilities, including colorblindness. For example, Chromagun, a puzzle game that involves colors, does this by assigning clear symbols to each color. This means that regardless of what colors a player can see, he or she can still play and enjoy the game.
Another common way to allow those who are colorblind to enjoy games is to include a colorblind mode that players can toggle on or off. For example, Into the Breach switches out problematic colors with ones that are more easily distinguishable and adds in a few icons to help colorblind players.
The team behind The Outer Worlds, however, has taken this effort a step further. According to Josh Sawyer, Obsidian’s studio design director, a colorblind mode was rendered unnecessary because the game “was designed to be playable without color information” and instead uses “other indicators” to distinguish between objects.
As great as this is, though, there are still some complaints from the game’s community. One of the biggest complaints is that the game compensates only for the more common forms of colorblindness, while other players have said that the highly contrasted visuals are actually too overwhelming. As is always the case with game design, though, it is impossible to please everyone and accommodate for every possible problem. However, we’re sure that many players are happy that The Outer Worlds is taking a step in the right direction.
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Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/the-outer-worlds-colorblind-friendly-co-game-director-inspiration/