Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi was no quite expecting the wave of responses when fans uncovered a common sight in games nowadays in the RPG. As early as the demo, fans quickly noticed the use of yellow paint, a common trope in gaming to showcase ledges and intractable objects while somehow simultaneously blending in and sticking out.
During an interview with Red Bull, Hamaguchi chalked the paint up as an accessibility thing, it seems, and it has taken the feedback very seriously for future games. That said, he didn’t expect people would take the splatters of paint so seriously.
The use of yellow paint was largely popularized by Uncharted back in the PS3 days. Some fans see objects like crates and ladders splattered with vibrant yellow paint as unnecessary, while others see the feature as a saving grace for players with vision problems.
the yellow paint is so unnecessary obviously a ladder is climbable obviously a crate is breakable why did they do this pic.twitter.com/oWTxn8rmGT
— nes 🎨 FF7 REBIRTH (@feydemon) October 2, 2023
While the yellow paint on climbable ledges wasn't designed with disabled players in mind. It has helped people with low vision or who are cognitively disabled to see at a higher contrast and recognize where they should go. Is it the only solution to this problem? No, but it helps https://t.co/2RaORPKAzf
— Steve Saylor (@stevesaylor) February 8, 2024
Frankly, we see both sides — with accessibility on the rise and many big name game devs taking time to implement features to accommodate less able-bodied gamers, we understand how this can be an accessibility thing. On the flip side, though, it makes the act of exploration a little more limited and less satisfying when finding a hidden area that you only found with trial and error.
“I didn’t think that the ‘yellow paint’ would be something that would be discussed on social media. For things like camera options, where people have a wide variety of preferences and there’s no one right answer, our basic approach is to offer various accessibility options, so I would like to take on board the valuable feedback we have received towards this for future games.”
