Ubisoft's free colour blindness tool is a gift for game developers

An image from a demo of Ubisoft Chroma colourblind simulation tool showing a plane flying over hills.

Game developers looking to make their games more accessible will want to check out Ubisoft's Chroma. The colourblind simulation tool is now open-source and available for public use after several years of internal development.

The tool aims to allow developers to make their games more accessible for the estimated 300 million people around the world who are affected by colorblindness.

It applies a filter over the game screen to replicate how people with a colour vision deficiency will see it, allowing developers to adjust content to meet their needs (also see our pick of the best game development software).

Chroma applies a filter over the game screen to replicate how people with a colour vision deficiency will see it (Image credit: Ubisoft Chroma)

Developers can then make adjustments as necessary (Image credit: Ubisoft Chroma)

Ubisoft has been developing Chroma since 2021. The initial work was led by its Quality Control team in India. Today, the tool uses the Color Oracle algorithm and can be used on dual or single screens. It works with hotkeys, and the overlay is customisable and doesn't impact game performance.

David Tisserand, Director of Accessibility at Ubisoft, says: "Chroma has proven to be a highly efficient tool for us at Ubisoft. It has allowed us to assess the accessibility of our games for colorblind players much faster and more comprehensively than ever before.

"Because we believe accessibility is a journey, not a race, we're thrilled to share Chroma with the entire industry. We invite everyone to benefit from it, provide feedback, and contribute to its future development."

QC Product Manager Jawad Shakil adds: "Chroma was created with a clear purpose – making color blindness accessibility a natural part of the creative and testing process.

"The team faced and overcame significant challenges while building it, but through close collaboration with accessibility experts and by refining the tool based on feedback, they created a solution that eliminated lag and inaccuracies, making accessibility testing efficient and smooth."

Chroma is available on GitHub.

For more new game development tools, see how Quark Multiplayer is breaking Unity's player limits. You might also want to see Epic's free tutorials on switching from Unity to Unreal Engine 5 and how Unreal Engine 5 enabled the Lushfoil Photography Sim.