SWTOR Colorblind Mode

In update 7.2, Star Wars: The Old Republic added official support for colorblind players. Here’s how to change the different color settings in the game!

This information is from the Public Test Server! It may be slightly different when 7.2 goes live in “winter 2022”. – Swtorista

Colorblind Settings

To access the colorblind modes in SWTOR, press ESC on your keyboard and choose “Preferences” from the menu, or roll over the icon of a cogwheel in the main menu. On the Prefences menu on the left, choose “Graphics” and then scroll down to the bottom, and look for the “Colorblind” dropdown which will be defaulted to “Off”.

There are three options in the colorblind settings:

  • Off – No filter applied.
  • Protanopia – Applies a color vision deficiency filter for red light across the 3D game world and user interface.
  • Deuteranopia – Applies a color vision deficiency filter for green light across the 3D game world and user interface.
  • Tritanopia – Applies a color vision deficiency filter for blue light across the 3D game world and user interface.

Some players said that the color filter that worked best for them was not the same as the type of color blindness they are diagnosed with – so try all four options and see which one works best for you!

No filter:

Protanopia (red filter):

Deuteranopia (green filter):

Tritanopia (blue filter):

Here are some additional ways the color filters affect the game.

User Interface and Map

Off – Protanopia – Deuteranopia – Tritanopia

Crafting

Off – Protanopia – Deuteranopia – Tritanopia (I didn’t have a yellow item to craft sorry, just gray, green and orange.)

Character Creator

The character creator does not have any type of text labels, so if you wanted to make a “red” or “green” Twi’lek, or pick a specific eye color, you will not be able to see which is which. Another player suggested using the free WhatColor tool (see below).

Off – Protanopia – Deuteranopia – Tritanopia

Items and Ground Circles

The background shows a red circle on a green background.

The inventory has a bunch of stuff in it, but the most important section is in the bottom left of the inventory, it goes from top to bottom in order of rarity of the border of the item: Green, Blue, Purple, Gold. Colorblind players often say they can not tell the rarity of items apart. You can double-check the rarity by rolling over the item with your mouse, as each rarity will have a specific name in the tooltip.

  • White/Gray = Junk
  • Green =
  • Blue = Prototype
  • Purple = Artifact
  • Gold = Legendary

Off – Protanopia – Deuteranopia – Tritanopia

Chat Font Color Settings

In addition to the different color blind modes, you can also adjust individual font colors in the chat box, if you have one that isn’t easily visible or distinguishable.

Right-click the chat tab (for example, “General”) and choose “Chat Settings”.

Once there, click the colorful box to the left of the type of text you can’t see well.

It will allow you to pick a new color with a color wheel.

Subtitle Colors

You can also adjust the individual color settings for Subtitles in cutscenes.

To adjust your subtitles, press your ESC key, choose Interface Editor. You can also choose Interface Editor from the main menu, it’s part of the symbol with a cog in the menu.

 This will open the Interface Editor tool which allows you to adjust where things are on your screen and their scale.

To adjust subtitles, you first need to select “Conversation” from the dropdown in the middle of the settings. By default, “All” is selected.

The next step is to select the Subtitles. You will need to click a small, thin, long green box near the bottom of the screen. They will only show up if you’ve selected “Conversation” from the dropdown first.

Once the Subtitles box is selected, you can start adjusting your subtitles settings at the bottom of the bigger dark blue box in the center of the screen – it will have the words “Conversation Subtitles” above it.

Scroll down in the little center box until you see “Subtitle Color” and “Background Color”. Click the little box to the left of either of them to adjust the color.

Combat Style Color Icons

The last color setting you can adjust is the color of Combat Style icons across the game – mostly seen in your Character sheet and above players heads if you have them turned on with their nameplates.

To access the Combat Styles Colors Selection, go to your Character Sheet by pressing “K” on your keyboard, then click the tiny icon of a pencil beside the word “Combat Styles”. There are some presets including “Default”, “Classic” and “Colorblind” (which was added before the other Colorblind mode settings, and may not be useful or needed if you already have a colorblind filter active).

WhatColor

If you are colorblind, you may have trouble identifying colors in-game, for example in the character creator, or when trying to describe something on your screen to a friend.

There is a free tool you can download called WhatColor. WhatColor is designed for people with partial or total color blindness.

You download the tool, open it on your computer from the Start Menu, and then the tool will do its best to identify and name the color that is under your mouse cursor.

WhatColor does not work well with the “Colorblind mode” filters in Star Wars: The Old Republic, as the filters actually change the color of what is appearing on your screen compared to what other players see. So you may want to turn the SWTOR colorblind settings off temporarily before you use WhatColor to identify a color.

Here’s an example of how WhatColor identifies the different colors of Twi’leks when I create a Sith Inquisitor.

Windows 10 Colorblind Filters

Windows 10 also has a colorblind filter mode you may find useful for playing SWTOR or any other game. You likely don’t want to combine this with SWTOR’s filters though.

To get to the colorblind Windows 10 setting, type “ease of access color” into your Start Bar Search and choose “Adjust Color Filters” from the results. You start by clicking the switch icon so it says “On” instead of “Off”.

I would recommend checking the box that says “Allow the shortcut key to toggle filter on or off”. Then when you press WINDOWS KEY + CTRL + C all together, you can turn the color filter on or off as needed.

It works very similar to SWTOR’s color filter settings. The Windows 10 Colorblind options include:

  • Inverted (reverse colors on the display)
  • Grayscale
  • Grayscale inverted
  • Red-green (green weak, deuteranopia)
  • Red-green (red-weak, protanopia)
  • Blue-yellow (tritanopia)