Why does my lighting and colors shift weirdly when I hit play?

Looks like Auto Exposure gets kicked in when playing.

You probably have a custom exposure set in the Editor Viewport instead of using Game Settings like the screenshot below.


UE5.6


Instead you can adjust it using a Post Process Volume


Enable Infinite Extent to affect the whole scene

In the Details Panel of the Post Process Volume, Under Lens → Exposure, you can either set both Min EV100 and Max EV100 to the same value (like 0 for example) to turn off Auto Exposure. Or you can set the Metering Mode to Manual (You can also turn it off for the whole project in the Project Settings → Engine → Rendering → Default Settings → Auto Exposure).

You can then use the Exposure Compensation Slider to adjust the Exposure.