Apex Legends improves colorblind support, promises crosshair customization

Respawn Entertainment Senior Experience Designer Justin Masse confirmed in a tweet on Tuesday that Apex Legends has added colorblind support for damage numbers on unshielded enemies. Masse also clarified that crosshair color customization will be added in a future update.

Improved colorblind support in Apex Legends

Colors on damage numbers in Apex Legends are an extremely important component of the UI. Different tiers of  Evo Shields are marked with different colors, and damage numbers on hits reflect that. The game uses white numbers with red borders to signify depleted shields, which could be unfriendly to colorblind players, especially when trying to differentiate between red and white Evo Shields. The screenshots below show off flesh hits on default settings, as well as the updated versions of the three colorblind profiles available.

The changes should help players with a range of color vision impairments better differentiate these important visual cues.

Crosshair color customization is coming to Apex Legends

The one drawback of this otherwise welcome update is that all colorblind profiles retain the default white crosshair. Some players had been using colorblind mode to make their crosshair orange, which helped it stand out on certain backgrounds. This was particularly helpful on Olympus, where much of the futuristic space station landscape is white, like the default crosshair.

Thankfully, Masse confirmed that color customization is coming, in the form of preset color options. It’s an important feature for a game with competitive ambitions. Tactical shooters like Valorant and Counter-Strike have long had extensive crosshair customization, which helps with both comfort and accessibility. Battle Royales have some catching up to do in that regard, and Respawn Entertainment is working towards that goal. Don’t expect full crosshair reshaping and resizing like some titles have though; the wildly varying crosshair configurations of Apex’s arsenal make that level of granular customization unlikely. Even so, color adjustments are a good start.