Palette swap

A palette swap is a practice used in video games, whereby a graphic that is already used for one element is given a different palette, so it can be reused as other elements. The different palette gives the new graphic another set of colors, which makes it recognizably distinct from the original. Palette swaps are commonly used to distinguish between first and second players, for creating visual hierarchies, and for making visually distinct areas for levels in games.

One reason palette swaps are used is to save memory. In early computer gaming, when cartridges were the main storage medium and memory capacity was both scarce and expensive, a single sprite could be reused by changing its palette. As such, many new objects could be created without the need to produce new graphics from scratch, which saved both production costs and development time. Early games in the Mortal Kombat series frequently introduced new ninja characters via palette swapping as both a cost-cutting and memory-preservation measure. More generally, palette swaps are common in sports games, in which the color scheme of opposing players is used to differentiate between teams.