World of Warcraft Patch Adding New Colorblind Support Options

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that World of Warcraft's upcoming 6.1 patch will introduce a new user interface system designed to help colorblind players and those who have visual issues related to colorblindness. A new "Accessibility" interface section will allow players to enable both text and color enhancements designed to help improve their overall visual experience in the game.

"These text enhancements add certain words and phrases to the tooltips throughout the game--tooltips that, by default, use different colors to indicate useful information about objects, NPCs, and other players," Blizzard writes on its website.

"For example, when you move your mouse cursor over a piece of rare gear and then a piece of epic gear, the game colors the names of the items blue and then purple, respectively," the developer added. "With 'UI Colorblind Mode' enabled, the game will add the words 'Rare' and 'Epic' to the tooltips for those items. For players who find it difficult to discern between friendly, neutral, or hostile targets, additional indication text in the tooltip will now appear when you move your mouse cursor over other characters."

When World of Warcraft's 6.1 patch arrives, the game will have three sets of colorblind filters to choose from: protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia. These filters, which also come with a "strength" slider, will be available through a dropdown selector.

See the image below for more about World of Warcraft's new colorblind support options.

World of Warcraft is not the first game to offer support for coloblind players. Others include Starcraft II, Borderlands 2, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, among others.

Patch 1.6 also introduces a racing mini-game, among other things. The update is available now on World of Warcraft's Public Test Realm, and will roll out publicly later.