Ubisoft has released a free color blindness simulation tool to help developers understand how to make their games accessible to those with three major types of color blindness.
The tool's name is Chroma, and it's available on GitHub as an open-source kit. It won't cost you anything to use it, either, so if you're a developer and you want to know how to make your game better for colorblind folks, Ubisoft's got you covered.
Per a post on Ubisoft's official website, Chroma's purpose is to "accurately replicate" the experience of colorblind gamers and help developers to "create accessible content to meet [those players'] needs".
Ubisoft's accessibility director David Tisserand says Chroma has been a "highly efficient" tool for Ubisoft when developing its own games, and that he and his team believe "accessibility is a journey, not a race", which is why they're sharing Chroma with the wider industry.
Since Chroma is open-source, developers are welcome to "benefit from it, provide feedback, and contribute to its future development", according to Tisserand. That's a pretty nice touch.
You can use Chroma on either single or dual screens, and it's hotkey-compatible as well. What's more, you can customize its overlay to make it look the way that works best for you.
QC product manager Jawad Shakil says Chroma was created to "mak[e] color blindness accessibility a natural part of the creative and testing process", and that the Chroma team's work is "already making a difference in how we design games with accessibility in mind".
More and more games are including extensive accessibility options at launch. Games like The Last of Us Part 1 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, among many others, are launching with options like color blindness modes and audio descriptions, and titles that don't launch with these concessions often receive them as updates.
Ubisoft's color blindness tool Chroma is available to download and use right now for free.
