A little over a week after a Dead by Daylight designer became publicly agitated over requests for accessibility options, developer Behaviour Interactive has announced that it is working on accommodations for colorblind players.
“This is not how we wanted to reveal this, but we feel it’s the right time,” the studio’s official Twitter account told video game accessibility advocate and advisor Steven Spohn earlier today. “We have been working on a colorblind mode for some time now and we are planning on a release shortly.”
Spohn had previously asked the developer to answer for statements made by live balance designer Ethan “Almo” Larson on his personal Twitch stream, during which he derided a viewer for “blabbing about colorblind mode all the time.”
“It’s getting really boring,” Larson said on January 12. “We’ve heard it a million times. We know. Continuing to badger us about it isn’t going to change anything. If it gets done, it’ll get done when we have time to do it or if somebody decides that it’s something that should be done. We know that a lot of players want it. We know that it’s not a small number. We get it.”
Dead by Daylight fans have long asked for a colorblind mode, as the condition can severely impact someone’s ability to play the game. According to a recent Reddit post calling for the community to boycott online play on September 6, which advocacy groups have designated as Colorblindness Awareness Day, some of the more egregious examples in the game include minuscule differences between status effect colours against the health bar and recent changes in the UI that replaced a more obvious visual indicator of character injuries with a simple red glow.
Auras work in progress. pic.twitter.com/jqdKb8cj1I
— Dead by Daylight (@DeadByBHVR) January 21, 2021
While it couldn’t provide a release date, Behaviour Interactive is hoping to add a colorblind mode to Dead by Daylight in the game’s next major update. The studio also shared examples of the work it’s done so far.
“This is not indicative of the views of the team, and we deeply apologise for any frustration or harm this may have caused,” the official Twitter account added in response to Larson’s statements.
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