Beat Saber, the hotly anticipated VR rhythm game launching May 1st, relies heavily upon colors to guide players in striking the correct notes. For those with color blindness, this could make the game more challenging. Fortunately the developer has confirmed plans for a color blind mode. Furthermore, the Beat Saber soundtrack will be released alongside the game itself.
Color blindness makes it difficult to distinguish some colors from others. According to the National Eye Institute, 8% of men and 0.5% percent of women with Northern European ancestry have a common form of red-green color blindness, a smaller number having blue-yellow color blindness, while total color blindness (monochromacy) is comparatively very rare.
Beat Saber uses unique colors to indicate which hand should be used to chop incoming notes (represented as floating blocks). Considering those colors are red and blue—not one of the common color blind pairs—even players with common forms of color blindness shouldn’t have trouble playing the game. But in some cases it still may be harder for some to separate the note colors than others.
Beat Saber developer Jan “Split” Ilavsky understands this well; he told me that he himself is afflicted by color blindness, and knows it can be frustrating to not be able to play a game because of it.
Ilavsky told me that he plans to develop a colorblind mode for Beat Saber, though said it wouldn’t be ready for launch, but would likely be added to the game in a later update. He’s on the lookout for people who have trouble separating red and blue, so if that’s you or someone you know, consider reaching out to him on Twitter.
As for the game’s music, which features a list of original electronic tracks, composer Jaroslav Beck has confirmed that the standalone Beat Saber soundtrack will be released alongside the game on May 1st, giving players a chance to thump to their favorite tunes even when they can’t be slicing to the beat. Here’s a sample of the unique musical style that Beck has brought to the game:
Beck hasn’t confirmed the price of the soundtrack, but has previously released some of the game’s singles on streaming and paid services alike.