Ubisoft's Chroma: The leading tool for accessibility and colorblindness simulation in video games

The industry of video game is in full swing initiatives to improve accessibility and make it possible for all types of people to enjoy the most popular titles. Among these proposals, Ubisoft's Chroma, a tool that has been much talked about in recent months within the sector.

Chroma emerges with the mission of breaking down visual barriers in video games, a first-class technical and inclusive challenge that is now accessible to the entire community thanks to its release as open source software. color-blindness It's a genetic disorder that impairs the ability to distinguish colors. Fortunately, this is an obstacle to enjoying the gaming experience that can now be overcome thanks to this Ubisoft initiative.

Chroma: The gamer accessibility revolution from Ubisoft

Chroma is born as an internal solution within Ubisoft with the aim of making it easier for development and quality assurance teams to identify accessibility issues caused by color blindness. After several years of internal testing, the company decided release Chroma for free under an open source license in the GitHub platform. He thus encouraged the entire industry to benefit from it and contribute to its development.

Its main function is apply visual filters in real time to the game screen, replicating the perceptions of three types of colorblindness: deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia. This allows developers and testers to visualize how their title would actually look to a person with these colorblindness variants. And all while the game is running, without having to modify the graphics engine or sacrifice performance.

One of the big draws of Ubisoft's Chroma is its ease of integration and versatility. It works with any game, regardless of the graphics engine used, and offers options to customize the experience: it supports filters on one or two screens, allows the use of hotkeys (hotkeys) and has an overlay (overlay) configurable.

Origins and motivation: from internal use to the global community

The birth of Ubisoft's Chroma dates back to 2021, at the hands of Ubisoft's Quality Assurance team in India. The challenge was clear: Create a tool capable of faithfully simulating the vision problems of colorblind people without sacrificing game performanceDuring its development cycle, the team faced significant challenges, including achieving an accurate simulation that didn't introduce lag or visual errors into the gameplay, which was critical for reliable and useful testing.

Finally, after several years of refinement and implementation in internal Ubisoft projects, Chroma proved to be extremely effective: allowed us to accelerate and deepen accessibility assessments for colorblind players like never before, identifying design issues in both digital art and key interfaces and visual elements.

The decision to open Ubisoft's Chroma as a open source software It was adopted so that all studios, independent developers and interested parties could take advantage of the innovation, provide suggestions and contribute to its improvement.

Key Features and Benefits of Chroma

Ubisoft's Chroma stands out for a series of features that make it a leading option. These are its Main features: 

• Real-time simulation: Colorblind filters are applied instantly while the game is running, allowing testers to adjust and verify the result without interruption.
• No impact on performance: Chroma is optimized to run at up to 60 FPS, without the user experiencing performance drops or delays in the action.
• Independence from the graphics engine: Whether your game is built in Unity, Unreal Engine, or another system, Chroma acts as a visual layer that is independent of the game’s internal architecture.
• Compatibility with any game and ease of deploymentSimply run the tool and select the screen or windows you want to work on. It's also useful for both titles in development and already released games that want to receive accessibility updates.
• Customizable interface: Includes an adjustable overlay, quick shortcuts, and the ability to take screenshots to document issues.
• Uses the Color Oracle algorithm: This ensures reliable and accurate simulations, validating the experience with recognized standards.
• Allows both single-screen and multi-monitor setups, making it easier for developers to visualize the results of their changes without losing control of the gameplay.

Thanks to these capabilities, Chroma has become a role model in the field of accessibility in video games. Not only does it make it easier to detect issues for colorblind players, but it also allows them to be proactively corrected during development.

The problem of color blindness in video games: context and figures

Color blindness is one of the most common visual impairments worldwideAccording to data from Color Blind Awareness, it is estimated that around 1 in 12 men (approximately 8%) and 1 in 200 women (approximately 0,5%) live with some form of color perception disorder. This means that Hundreds of millions of people may experience additional difficulties when playing video games where contrasts or color codes are essential, affecting everything from gameplay to understanding menus or visual narrative.

Video games have traditionally not taken these challenges into account.Until recently, solutions were often limited to high-contrast modes or generic filters that were inaccurate and difficult to implement during development.

Now, Ubisoft's Chroma allows detect these problems from the early stages of creationThanks to its real-time approach and easy integration, designers have the opportunity to create more inclusive worlds, adjusting the design from the ground up to prevent these barriers from reaching end players.

How to access and use Chroma: possibilities and future

Chroma is Available completely free and as open source software on GitHub, which means that any interested person, studio, or group can download the code, compile it, and start using it, or, if they have technical knowledge, contribute to improving it.

For installation, Chroma requires some basic knowledge in development environments, such as the use of CMake y Visual Studio, but the documentation and examples provided by Ubisoft and the community make the process increasingly accessible even for small studios or independent developers.

The tool is also designed to expand with new features thanks to community input. Ubisoft explicitly encourages users to provide feedback, report bugs, and suggest improvements.

Chroma's contribution to the gaming universe and society

The impact of Ubisoft's Chroma goes beyond the technical side. By helping more and more colorblind players fully enjoy titles they'd previously struggled with, it represents a true democratization of access to video gamesA clear sign that the industry is moving in the right direction, committed to real inclusion.

As more companies follow Ubisoft's lead and participate in the development of free and collaborative tools, Gaming will become a richer, fairer, and more diverse experience.Chroma, since its first weeks as an open project, has served as an inspiration and reference for those seeking to contribute their grain of sand to digital accessibility.