History Main / ColorCodedItemTiers

** Resonators, XMP Bursters, and Ultrastrikes are colored yellow at Level 1, and then cycle through the spectrul of hues with Level 4 being red and [[PurpleIsPowerful purple being Level 8]].

A subtrope of ColorCodedForYourConvenience. Compare with LawOfChromaticSuperiority.

* The first ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' game features nine colors: White, Green, Blue, Purple, Orange, Dark Orange, Darker Orange, and Cyan. White and green are exclusively for generic weapons, while blue and purple may either be generic or possess special red flavor text that grants a one-of-a-kind effect, earning the moniker Unique. The oranges are reserved for legendary weapons, which are guaranteed to possess red flavor text like Unique weapons. Cyan weapons were introduced with the "Secret Armory of General Knoxx" DLC as an even stronger version of legendaries, dubbed Pearlescent, and are far more rare; each weapon manufacturer only makes one Pearlescent weapon, and there is only one Pearlescent weapon of each weapon category (e.g. revolver, sniper rifle, shotgun).
* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' recycles much of its predecessor's system, but makes some alterations to keep things fresh. White, green, blue, and purple fill essentially the same role, although Unique weapons are almost entirely blue now. Magenta is introduced as a variant of purple for E-tech weapons, always-elemental guns that fire atypical projectiles. Legendary items have been condensed to one shade of orange. Pink weapons, dubbed Seraph, were introduced with the "Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty" DLC as a variant of legendaries that would serve as a reward for fighting raid bosses. The introduction of [[NewGamePlus Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode]] brought back cyan for Pearlescent weapons, which are now exclusive to UVHM. Years later, the "Commander Lilith and the Fight For Sanctuary" DLC added a rainbow rarity, dubbed Effervescent, as yet another legendary variant; several of these have conditions for their special effects, such as being in a particular area or having certain other Effervescent items equipped. One interesting feature to note is that white weapons will never spawn with an accessory, while purple and above will always spawn with one. One of the LoadingScreen tips even offers a helpful mnemonic for the basic spectrum: "'''W'''hen '''G'''randma '''b'''urps, '''P'''atrick '''o'''beys."
* ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' once again makes some alterations. White, green, blue, purple, and orange keep the same roles they had in ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'', but magenta and cyan have been removed, and pink has been repurposed for the new Glitch weapons introduced with the "Claptastic Voyage" DLC, which can activate one of four "glitch" effects upon reloading based on their randomly-generated green "error code".

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' recycles much of its predecessor's system, but makes some alterations to keep things fresh. White, green, blue, and purple fill essentially the same role, although Unique weapons are almost entirely blue now. Magenta is introduced as a variant of purple for E-tech weapons, always-elemental guns that fire atypical projectiles. Legendary items have been condensed to one shade of orange. Pink weapons, dubbed Seraph, were introduced with the "Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty" DLC as a variant of legendaries that would serve as a reward for fighting raid bosses. The introduction of [[NewGamePlus Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode]] brought back cyan for Pearlescent weapons, which are now exclusive to UVHM. Years later, the "Commander Lilith and the Fight For Sanctuary" DLC added a rainbow rarity, dubbed Effervescent, as yet another legendary variant; several of these have conditions for their special effects, such as being in a particular area or having certain other Effervescent items equipped.One interesting feature to note is that white weapons will never spawn with an accessory, while purple and above will always spawn with one. One of the LoadingScreen tips even offers a helpful mnemonic for the basic spectrum: "'''W'''hen '''G'''randma '''b'''urps, '''P'''atrick '''o'''beys."

*** Orange (Legendary, named items with higher stats and a special power exclusive to that item. Unlike D2 uniques most properties of legendary items are still random.)
*** Green (Set, legendary items that also grant extra bonuses when worn with other items of the same set)

* ''VideoGame/DungeonSiege'' uses color tiers only for magical enhancements. The tiers are white for mundane items, blue for basic magic items with 1 or 2 bonuses, mauve for 1-bonus-only "rare" magic items, yellow for "legendary" items with up to 2 bonuses, and reddish-brown for items thar give a debuff. Nature magic spells get green, and combat magic spells get orange-gold. The ''Legends of Aranna'' expansion adds purple for items imbued with a spell, and a teal-green for Diablo-style set items.
* The various item/people cards in ''Videogame/Fortnite'' use the same chromatic scaling as outlined above:
** White < Green < Blue < Purple < Orange < Gold (Heroes and Survivors only); with each tier getting additional abilities / better base statistics than the previous one.

* The first ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' game features nine colors (White, Green, Blue, Purple, Orange, Dark Orange, Darker Orange and light blue as Pearlescent). Up to Darker Orange, those follow the usual pattern of rarity, Pearlescent ones are the rarest and exclusively one per item kind.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'', White and Green are the most common, Blue are one step above and sometimes one-of-a-kind items, Purple are one step further, Magenta is for special Eridium-enhanced weapons, Pink is Seraph items introduced in the first DLC as [[AwesomeButImpractical powerful gear with significant drawbacks]], Orange is for Legendary items (with no shade variations like the first game). The cyan Pearlescent items are exclusive to the second NewGamePlus. One interesting feature to note is that white weapons will never spawn with an accessory, while purple and above will always spawn with one. One of the LoadingScreen tips even offers a helpful mnemonic for the basic spectrum: "'''W'''hen '''G'''randma '''b'''urps, '''P'''atrick '''o'''beys."
* ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' once again makes some alterations. White, green, blue, purple, and orange keep the same roles they had in ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'', but magenta and cyan have been removed, and pink has been repurposed for the new Glitch weapons introduced with the "Claptastic" Voyage DLC.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Elsword}}'', the colors that indicate item tiers isn't shown in the equipment model itself, but rather, the letters are colored differently. The tiers go as thus: Normal (white letters), Rare (yellow letters), Elite (purple letters) and Unique (beige letters). There's also one extra tier, Old (black letters) that is reserved for unusable, junk equipments.

* Whenever ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' needs to denote rarity, it resorts to the Olympic medal color scheme: bronze for common, silver for uncommon, and gold for rare. Very rarely, a fourth tier, legendary, is needed, in which case platinum (a brighter white than silver) is used. Mods also have a special fifth color, purple, which is reserved for the randomly-generated Riven mods. Note however that this is never used for normal weapons and equipment; unlike most similar games, every single weapon is unique, with no obvious way to tell if it's better or worse except actually using it.

** The first game's division between standard (white) items, enchanted (blue) ones and uniques (yellow), may be considered an UrExample. The sequels add the green "set" category, where items from the same set are more powerful when used together, and gold or orange tier for uniques, while yellow items become a more powerful tier of "randomly enhanced" blue items.

*** Grey (Low quality, no magic properties and lower base stats)
*** White (Normal or superior)
*** Slightly Different Grey (Socketed, same as normal but can be improved with gems and runes)

* ''VideoGame/Anthem'' uses this. The tiers go: Common (White) > Uncommon (Green) > Rare (Blue) > Epic (Purple) > Masterwork (Orange) > Legendary (Gold).
* ''VideoGame/TheDivision'' uses this system. \In order from lowest to highest, you have Worn (Gray), Standard (Green), Specialized (Blue), Superior (Purple), High-End (Gold), Gearset (Turquoise), and Exotic (Orange).

[[folder: Wide Open Sandbox ]]

* ''VideoGame/Artifact'' has only three tiers: common (bronze), uncommon (silver), and rare ([[GoldColoredSuperiority gold]]). However, for the sake of balance and fairness, rarer cards aren't necessarily stronger than more common ones.

* ''VideoGame/HearthstoneHeroesOfWarcraft'' is a semi-subversion. Cards follow the ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' colour scheme to denote their rarity, however actual card ''power'' is almost completely disconnected from their rarity (with the exception of the orange legendary cards, although even many of those don't see much play).

* Whenever ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' needs to denote rarity, it resorts to the Olympic medal color scheme: bronze for common, silver for uncommon, and gold for rare. Very rarely, a fourth tier, legendary, is needed, in which case platinum (a brighter white than silver) is used. Mods also have a special fifth color, purple, which is reserved for the randomly-generated Riven mods.

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*** Yellow (Rare, a variable number of random magic properties. Actually the most common kind of item)
*** Orange (Legendary, named items with higher stats. Unlike D2 uniques most properties of legendary items are still random.)

* Rupees in ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' have different colors depending on their value. While higher colors tend to vary, the most consistent value is Green=1 Blue=5. Purple is always among the higher values, ranging from 50 to 200 depending on the game.

* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'' has a color coding similar to the ''Diablo'' series: regular items are white, magical ones are blue, rares are yellow, and uniques are golden. Quest items are green but they are not equippable. Some players and even the wiki have been known to refer simply to white, blue, gold and orange items.
* ''VideoGame/TitanQuest'' has six tiers: Grey (junk), White (normal), Yellow (magical), Green (rare), Blue (mythical) and Purple (legendary). Unlike other games, purple-tier items are available only on Epic and Legendary difficulty settings.
* ''VideoGame/TorchlightII'' has white (common) > green(uncommon) > blue (rare) > orange (unique), with purple being reserved for quest-related items.

* ''VideoGame/{{Battlerite}}'' has four tiers of item rarity. The colors are used on the items' names on the customization screen, and when revealing the content of a [[LootBoxes chest]]:[[note]]Upon opening a chest, three containers appear that are opened by clicking on them. Moving the mouse over the containers causes their two halves to separate, revealing a color-coded glow.[[/note]]
** Common items are gray and consist of avatars and [[PaletteSwap recolors of a character's default weapon]].
** Rare items are blue and consist of {{Victory Pose}}s, [[PaletteSwap recolors of a character's default outfit]], weapons with new models, and recolors of the default ram mount.
** Epic items are purple and consist of flashier recolors of a character's outfit with more details added, more elaborate weapons (including event exclusive weapons), and some mounts.
** Legendary items are orange and consist of outfits that completely change a character's appearance, weapons with lights and moving parts, and mounts with elaborate models and particle effects.

* ''VideoGame/EternalCardGame'' has 5 tiers: common (grey), uncommon (green), rare (blue), legendary (yellow), and promo (purple). Promo cards can be obtained by playing the game during their limited time frame, then can only be crafted afterwards.

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' features item qualities for its weapons, hats and aesthetic gizmos. Although their rarity is relative and sometimes a vintage or a genuine quality item can be considered being worth less than their common counterpart from the users, Light Grey (default "Stock" items) > Yellow (unique) > Blue (vintage) > Green (genuine) > Purple (unusual) could be considered a relatively canonical order of rarity, with genuines and vintages being very dependent on the item itself. There are also other qualities such as stranges or community made items that can't be placed anywhere precisely within the order by rarity.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' is the TropeCodifier that introduced "standard" color coding of Grey (Poor) > White (Common) > Green (Uncommon) > Blue (Rare) > Purple (Epic) > Orange (Legendary) (with light gold "Heirloom" items that can be transferred between characters on the same account added later).

* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' uses white for common, green for uncommon, blue for rare, purple for very rare, light purple for ultra rare (reserved for Fleet gear or upgraded items), and gold for Epic (mostly upgraded items and a few mission rewards). For equipment, each tier adds an additional "mod" that grants a bonus like increased critical chance or a bonus to a character skill.
* ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' features eight colors: grey ('trash' items, only good for selling to a vendor), white ('street' gear, which do not give stats), green, blue, orange (SocketedEquipment that allows you to freely swap the stat-boosting components to match your level while keeping the same look), purple/magenta (coming from {{Rare Random Drop}}s and stores selling gear for endgame dungeon tokens; usually SocketedEquipment filled with purple stat-boosting components by default, the endgame shop armors also give additional bonuses for wearing at least two parts of a given set), darker purple 'legendary' items, and light gold "Inheritance" items that are limited to characters on the same player account.

* VideoGame/TheElderScrollsOnline uses the common color scale of white, green, blue, purple, orange. However by using certain crafting materials it is possible to raise an item along the scale and increase its stats.

* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has [[http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Rarity Rarity]], a statistic applying to all items, that loosely indicates their value and the difficulty with which they are obtained. An item's Rarity is indicated in-game by the color of its name text, as displayed, for example, when rolling the cursor over the item in an inventory slot. An item's Rarity can be raised or lowered by up to two tiers depending on its Modifier. There are 13 tiers of Rarity which go from gray (the lowest) to purple (the highest), plus two special tiers not normally available (rainbow, exclusive to expert-mode items, and amber, exclusive to quest items).

* The tabletop RPG ''TabletopGame/AgeOfAquarius'' has a rarity rating for every weapon or item. It features standard rarity ratings of "Common", "Rare", "Very Rare" for most items, and off-the-scale, idiosyncratic rarity ratings for both extremely common items (i.e. Rock: "It's probably lying under your feet right now") and extremely rare items (i.e. Minigun: "Hell freezes over before you find one").