The dignity of grey and brown.

[freaper]

In Black Desert Online most non-cash shop armors look fairly muted, with mostly dark or earthen tones. They work well with the late-medieval setting of the game and because the world itself is very colorful. Had everything looked drab and dull, I would've complained about everything being grey/brown, too.

 

[CaitSeith]

Fun fact: grey and brown pallets are easier and cheaper to apply in games. They are already part of Unreal engine so it saves time and money to design everything with those colors.

...what?

Do gaming companies have to manually code new colors in, or are they locked behind a pay wall?

If they don't want to use the shaders included with the engine (which look good enough already), yes. They have to adjust the engine until they get the coloring they look for. That takes time, time that could be used for other game elements that don't already have a pre-packaged solution.