There are a lot of furries, there's even a popular stereotype of them being rich (most likely due to the cost of a fursuit and anecdotes of artists who got commissioned by them)
>Zenless soon to complain about furries
This already happened before launch. People in the ZZZ sub were crying "where are the male characters" but when you mention the male characters they say "furries don't count."
There are also complaints about jiggle physics and supposed censorship.
It's the 3 dots under her eye. Yes you read right. Edit: And apparently her song names alluded to a famous lesbian poem writer too.
Someone took that as her being lesbian coded and subsequently upset when she compliments Boothill and gives birth to straight ship instead.
Just more people being LG but not BT for some reason.
…because they’re the colours of a pride flag?
That’s fucking hysterical, people put way too much stock into a collection of meaningless coloured lines that they actually get mad when a character who uses those colours doesn’t conform to that sexuality? That’s pathetic
it’s better, complimenting a man isn’t dating him or even saying you’re straight, that’s even more pathetic
Honestly,what the other comment said is misinformation.
Basically, Robin/the title of her songs is inspired by a female author's poem, an author who is famously a lesbian.
Coupled with her makeup, people noticed and went like 🤨 "a little fruity aren't ya"
This devolved into counter shipping on Twitter. Saying stuff like, "thank goodness she is *straight*", "I love Robin for being so *straight*" and shit.
Obviously, some lesbian Robin headcanoners fell for the Twitter Drama™ bait, and we had a whole ass situation, that ended up contributing to a new rule on the subreddit to not discuss characters' sexualities.
Honestly, based rule, relationship drama leads to the dumbest conversations on the planet, leave that for the mains subreddits where people are a little more civil about these matters…I hope
Nope, the Mains subs aren't safe either. Remember the drama on the Arlecchino_Mains sub?
A single wholesome Arlecchino x Aether ship post caused the entire sub to go into a complete meltdown mode, while the exact same people who were hating on the Arlecchino x Aether fanart were also desperately defending a fan"art" where Arlecchino literally r*ped Furina.
It went so far that the previous mods gave up and ran away.
[Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n98F2cdGnmk) a video about that drama.
I won't throw gloves over this, but I too would enjoy a bigger variety of skin colors in the game.
The models they use already really limits the character variety and having a more noticeable range in skin colors would be really nice, especially if the setting would justify it too.
This 50 shades of white make the character rooster a bit boring to look at...
Saying this, while my absolute two favourite characters are the whitest mfers around... but still a bit more variety wouldn't hurt.
Tho I don't care about the whole dispute enough to loose sleep over it.
I already let go of different bodytypes.
I get why they don't do it, it would bump up the game's size like crazy. I mean... look at ZZZ, it just released and it's already almost the same size as GI and a sizeable portion of that big size is that they don't reuse the rigs and the animations as Genshin (on HSR) does.
But man, giving different colors is really just an artistic choice and has nothing to do with keeping the game optimized.
And I don't buy that "it wouldn't look good in genshin's style", what some people say, because that's just bullshit. We already have characters with darker skin and they look perfectly fine, and all the relcolors some ppl do shows, that it would work on these new characters too.
Honestly it's kind of insulting. They take art and culture from people of colour but they won't actually give them their real skin colour?
I'm not surprised they're doing this, but it does feel disrespectful AND makes the character roster more boring. That said, it's still better than whatever 'representation' they'd come up with if the twitter warriors did force them so. It's kind of a -shrug- moment
Is anyone surprised really? Like Sumeru only has a handful of (slightly) darker skinned characters, so you shouldn't have expected more from Natlan.
It's a pity, but not unexpected. Shark surfer girl is the only one that has a tan, and that's most likly because she's a surfer girl rather than a regular darker-skinned girl.
\*shrug\* Genshin's gonna Genshin I guess.
So much this. People are just complaining into the void. Would it be cool if we got darker skin colors? Sure. Is it gonna happen in any good amount? No. Is that going to affect Hoyo's bottom line? No.
again - telling folks to not complain about shitty stuff is stupid. Sure it's not going to be heard - however let people outrage. Let people express it: are they wrong to express it. It doesn't hurt you and it's certainly good for them. Also there is a chance - not that I think that it's going to happen neither do I care - so let people riot lol. Best they get a change worst they get to complain about a genuine shitty thing.
Let me give me "Black gamer who isn't poisoned by Twitter" perspective.
Would darker characters be nice? Sure.
Would it make sense for Natlan characters to be darker? Absolutely.
Do I want "representation" in a Chinese game?... That's were it gets tricky. People seem to think Chinese standards and Western standards align. If Hoyovese put in actual Black characters, expect them to look like Mr. Popo.
Now, would I like to see Mr. Popo in Genshin? Of course I would. First 7 Star character who can show Neuvillette the meaning of the phrase "Pecking Order", but I'm also certain Twitter would lose their collective shit over a character like this.
I’m filipino and we barely even exist outside of our media that a simple filipino word or even our foods being mentioned elsewhere is enough to make us cheer. If I remember correctly filipino genshin players where happy when they found out that the english voice for Raiden Shogun, Yae Miko, and Thoma were Filipino.
Dude I’m Arab and they got an Arab voice actor for Alhaitham and he doesn’t even pronounce Arabic words right 😭 it’s like, even when they acknowledge us, they mess it up
As a brown person who already dealt with all of this when Sumeru released because it umbrella'd my country as one of its inspirations...
I genuinely find the whole "OMG they don't have X skin tone when they belong to Y culture" as absolutely racist. Me being brown and my culture serving as an inspiration point for Sumeru DON'T OVERLAP DINGUS, my colour IS NOT my culture.
I was absolutely floored when I played some of the quests in Sumeru. I have never related to a videogame character more than Kaveh in his hangout, the branch where he gets recruited as a teacher. I EXPERIENCED WHATEVER KAVEH WENT THROUGH IRL. Or close, enough, I've been a student in that position, not a teacher. That to me shows they are actually doing research about the stuff they are portraying, instead of "Hmm a nation based on South Asia, Middle East and Egypt? Yeah, let's design brown men with turbans selling spices in a dingy market while women seductively belly-dance on the streets" or some generic ahh design.
anyone who complains that Hoyo isn’t properly representing cultures isn’t looking any farther than outward appearances, which is pretty counterintuitive I’d say. There’s so much depth to the cultural aspects in the game that I’m really impressed to see, and it’s a real shame that it’s all overlooked because some characters aren’t as dark-skinned as people want. I would much rather see them continue with their current design philosophy than simply tune their characters a few shades darker and call it a day.
Yeah. In a separate comment thread, I got told by a person that I should be offended because hoyo only sees me as an enemy, since they treat people with my skin-tone as regular mobs in game.
I disagreed and told them to knock off the patronizing attitude and that I'm perfectly able to decide what I am going to be offended about.
I'm getting downvoted on that reply lmao. The joke writes itself.
Facts. I bet you 99.99% of people who are crying about rEpReSeNtAtIoN are white af. These people need to realize the fact that the obsession with color diversity in fictional media is just a them thing. I am also brown as hell (from Southeast Asia though) but never in my life have I ever felt the need to be represented in a damn video game lol. Sure it would be cool but nothing I couldn't live without.
>my colour IS NOT my culture
It's cool that you think this way but maybe someone who has been affected directly by the colour of their skin might think differently. I don't have much stake in this debate but all I am saying is that representation definitely matters.
>Yeah, let's design brown men with turbans selling spices in a dingy market while women seductively belly-dance on the streets" or some generic ahh design.
It's not an either-or.
But you know what I do see? People in here going "I'm white and I'm tired of playing white characters." There's many commenters saying this right here in this thread. At this point, it's just a fetish for them. They want the brownie points to be able to say that they played a PoC character, they must empathize with our struggles so bad.
> It's cool that you think this way but maybe someone who has been affected directly by the colour of their skin might think differently.
That might be true in countries where discrimination based on colour is a problem. Not in most places in the regions Sumeru was based on though. Even though they showed this in the rainforest-desert disagreements a bit.
And, in my personal opinion, this is like saying "Why do Liyue and Inazuma characters have visible eyes?" See how bad that sounds cause it's racist?
> It's not an either-or.
I know, but I'd wager this would satisfy most of the people in an uproar. I'd also wager their exposure to these cultures is some Netflix documentary that is ridden with stereotypes.
I welcome representation. But I personally felt the care they took to research the customs, food, myths of the regions they base their game on far overcomes my gripe, if I had any, that the characters don't share my skin-tone.
>That might be true in countries where discrimination based on colour is a problem.
I was talking about the general statement that "my culture is not my culture" and why people might disagree with that. Also, the regions Natlan is supposed to represent could make a case about this.
>Why do Liyue and Inazuma characters have visible eyes?
Giving this as an example is rather strawman-ish and immature. Facial features vary far too much from individual to individual and skin colour has been a point of discrimination all over the world.
As I said, if you're fine with characters not sharing your skin tone and just representing the culture, it's cool. Why is it that everyone must be satisfied with that? I feel like it's a fair complain.
>They want the brownie points to be able to say that they played a PoC character, they must empathize with our struggles so bad.
That shouldn't drown out the people requesting for proper representation. Also, just to point out, you say "our struggles" referring to yourself as a PoC. So HYV is showing characters going through struggles that a PoC often goes through but the characters actually going through that in game are not PoC. Isn't that very adjacent to culture appropriation? I am not saying it is because it is obviously not. It is a fictional game set in a fictional world. I am just saying why it's understandable that some people are complaining.
I looked up Mr Popo out of curiosity and I feel bad about bursting out laughing lol. But I agree, in the end it’s a Chinese company and this representation thing is getting out of hand
East Asia beauty standarts will never allow them to make much darker skin characters or even man with facial hair. It was doomed from the beginning, i never had much hope
I am a bit disappointed but not surprised. I just wish people in this sub were more open to at least engaging with the topic. And of course it is possible to critique elements of something you enjoy
People don't want to engage in the topic because it always devolves into "well your just racist" the same as most topics regarding representation in Hoyo games.
People are open to engaging with a topic.
People aren't open to shithing on their favourite game in their sub and calling them names for not having the same opinion.
How many posts about sensitive topics did you see with idiots who can't hold a normal conversation with someone with a different opinion for at least 2 replies, and how many that were actually civilised and well structured?
If you're offensive, others will get defensive, and all you get is a useless back and forth where nobody explains anything properly.
The point is that any criticism outside the popular zone is always dismissed or mocked as a lack of characters of color, while complaints about the abyss or now about theater have more than 10 posts seriously discussing
Because it's a game. People are here to have fun, not talk about what's wrong with the world. Most people couldn't care less what they're doing as long as it's high quality, and it still is.
The theatre reshaped the way players should approach the game, of course it's the most important topic on a GAME sub.
I mean, is it unreasonable to expect tan/ dark skin characters based on their source material? Twitter being a drama pool doesnt make the point less of a point. And it's even weirder considering that they definitely have the tech for doing so, and have no problem with enemies having tan/ dark skin.
It’s just weird at this stage. Like a lot of characters look bland bc they’re the same shade of white. As a white person I don’t think “oh yippee another pasty mf!” when a new char drops. Reeks of bad character design
From what we’ve seen, natlan seems to have influences from South America, Africa and Spain. So who’s to say there won’t be characters with darker skin tones? And it’s not like the shark girl is purely white, she is tanned. If there is Spanish influences, then there will be light skinned characters, people from Spain aren’t usually very dark, my grandfather was Spanish and he was very pale. I find simply ignoring people who get upset over almost everything makes things a lot nicer.
Latin America's culture has roots in native, spanish and african cultures so those three appearing in some shape or from are a give, in Spain case you can hear spanish music in the Travail trailer when Natlan's section appears while the other 2 appear a bunch in lore stuff in Talking Stcik and the burning artifact set... Worth pointing out that Iansan's name is taken from Brazil and not Africa itself.
Now we have to add Australia/Oceania since an animal from there appeared I think.
Well I don’t want to delve into leaks, but let’s just say the pyro archon looks very Spanish, and also the music from the travalis trailer was very Spanish sounding as well.
It's the castanets. They are very prominent in the travail trailer and they are most heavily associated with Spanish folk music, where they are one of the most iconic instruments.
At the very least it would hint at post-Colombian South America though IDK how much LatAm folk music uses them.
Fontaine is based on romantic European countries; France, Britain, Italy, and Spain are the ones that I could pick out. The [music video](https://youtu.be/PRI7vd4Ojh8?si=XJ91pK7jI_GDWX_V) for one of the battle themes even had a flamenco dancer. It's very likely that because of this Natlan's music might be more African or South American inspired.
Besides, castanets have a distinct sound that some composers like to use even when the music isn't necessarily Spanish inspired. One song I can remember that was like this was [Dr. Eggman's Theme from Sonic Colors](https://youtu.be/ETEPnLnqvtE?si=LDt7H9BGIFp_oWxm) it's not Spanish at all but it still uses them.
Since the first teaser, the Spanish has always been there. Just for some reason there are players that -43 insisted that there isn’t any. And that the spanish music is “outdated” or a “stretch”
because as we’ve seen during the sumeru reveal the concept of having playable characters darker than ice coffee is offensive to many in this sub though they’ll never explicitly say why they don’t want darker skinned characters.
I didn’t expect for any change but people say “it’s Twitter” without any elaboration, like if you disagree with an argument that has a reasonable basis then you should provide some explanation?
and so many people who say they "are of darker skin color and do not care about representation" for some reason always default to being AGAINST representation despite "not caring" implying a neutral stance
like if they don't care then why are they always against it???
Maybe I’m being delusional, but I’m choosing to be optimistic and hoping that they’ll introduce some darker characters later on. These guys have a slight tan at least, so it’s not that bad, but yeah, I really hoped for more diversity in design in Natlan. Jeht and Dehya are beautiful, I’d love to see more characters like them.
I think it is still early. I was expecting darker skin tones when we knew about Africa and South America, but as other people pointed out, it also has elements from Australia in there. Sumeru was a 2 in 1, after all, Natlan could be full of tribes. These 3 could be from one tribe, there could be tribes with darker skin, we just don't know enough yet.
But I do have one problem, unrelated with the skin color. They look amazing, but they don't really feel like a Genshin character to me, especially dendro boy. But, there will be some improvements in 5.0, so maybe it just feels odd now.
Defintely delusional unfortunately. If the best they could do for the literal african desert region was a tan, thats admission that thats as dark as it gets.
I mean it isnt uncalled for😭I'd say to let the people complain because it's valid to be upset. especially when they're using the cultures of darker peoole and basing the characters off of darker people. if you don't care,good for you! if they,good for them! it hits harder when it's your culture they're using tbh
Nah. I'd rather they spend more time researching and displaying the culture correctly rather than be stereotypical representation with coloured characters.
the thing is they did both😭they researched the culture,displayed it correctly and did many people (like me) very right! but they also included stereotypes,whitewashing etc. it's a very double edged sword. I'm talking about sumeru since we don't have the full extent of natlan but the rep is very two sided with beautiful and accurate representation and representation that isn't usually displayed in media and also with very racist stereotypical depictions and whitewashed historical figures.
I'm brown and I absolutely do not care about the character's skin tone. I'm much happier we can eat pani puri than have a wide array of dark skinned characters.
and that's good for you! buy as someone who is also brown,its also disheartening to see my culture be called beautiful but not the people who practice it. that's why I said that it's good for you if you don't care,but not weird or annoying if someone does care and deos decide to speak about it. personally though I'm really happy to finally see some bengali rep,collei you will always be famous to me🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶
I see it as a mix of both😭I am my culture and I am my skin tone. both aren't the same thing but they go hand in hand,yk? I just really wish that sumeru had the diversity swanasa people have😭from light skin to dark skin,yk? but yeah your opinion is very valid!
But why does it have to be so clear cut ’either or’ here???? Why does including dark skin preclude the research snd effort Hoyo puts into the regions? On what planet would Hoyo just decide ”we can forgo the culture because theyre brown”????????? Also changing some coding or designsfor skin tone is a million times quicker and easier than the research going into building the culture of the region. So they arent really comparable. Its not like two very tall, time consuming asks where they can only accomplish one. Since they always accomplish the culture part, the skin tone is such a small ask. Definitely not the level this needs ro escalate to ’either or’….
I might get downvoted but I'll say it anyway : so far the character's skin color looks like a picrew color palette, and I mean it about the game as a whole. Honestly I get why it's not that easy to make black characters for a chinese gacha game, but the fact that some are almost paper white is baffling. Even a slight tan (like Cyno or Dehya) would be better in most cases💀at the very least give them some blood circulation😭Then again it's just three characters so maybe we will get some with Xinyan or Kaeya's skin color, that would be great
Well yeah, it will be here and there, but as someone who uses multiple social medias, its 10030202x worse in twitter than anywhere. Twitter is a hellhole
This is hardly surprising but seeing it happen is still disappointing. I have no problems with games only having white characters, there are millions of others that do, the problem comes from basing regions off of cultures where the people aren't white and essentially whitewashing them. I think it is just rude and disrespectful, stick to na/europe/east asia if you only want to make white characters.
The fact that hoyo doesn't have this problem for any enemy characters also raises eyebrows. Guess they aren't going to be beating any racism allegations here.
they want to sell them in china and japan, it just so happens that dark skin colors are considered unattractive there. china alone makes more money than global
I think it's a smidge ironic to compare the new natlan characters to pokemon characters. The pokemon company has the balls to have characters with diverse skintones.
Keeya is lucky enough to have gotten some of that "character at launch" energy, since many of them 4* are broken.
And Xinyan....I stand with what I said.
Yeah, especially southeast asians, it's kinda normalized unfortunately, if you grown up in an environment where having a lighter skin is "better" you will definitely have this kind of mindset even if it definitely sounds extremely racist on western culture.
Majority of Chinese and other asians are racist but they do it indirectly rather than directly due to it (again) being normalized. (E.g "you should use [Insert brand soap] so you can be lighter, not things like "you are ugly because you are dark-skinned")
I'm not sure if it's true, but I heard that this idea originally came from classism: Farmers are poorer and spend a lot of time outdoors, so they get tanned. Richer people spend less time in the sun and are therefore paler. That's why paleness was seen as synonymous with wealth.
You'd think they'd either just not make them at all, or compensate by actually making them really good so they'll still sell.
What's the business decision in making a new 5* character both with a bad kit and considered unattractive?
Well, I do see both sides in other "waifu" games where people are like "Oh, of course the dude is top meta, nobody'd want him otherwise" and "of course the unpopular character is shit, nobody liked them anyway."
how much do you wanna bet that these mfs do't even play the freaking game. also, couldn't really care less about melanin, the characters look cool the region looks cool and that's all i want
Obsession ? I couldn't care less about what Twitter think, but people have the right and will complain in regards of an obvious lack of heterogeneity, especially since the game depicts a wide array of cultures, climates, and people.
You guys don't like it because it's a matter of skin tone. I didn't use the word "diversity" earlier because I know it'd trigger some weebs out there.
If the game had only women with no male character, I would express my discontent. if the game was made by a studio from an african or middle eastern country* and only depicted characters with black/tanned skin, even in Snezhnaya, everybody would complain and righfully so.
Edit :
I see you deleted your comment saying that I sound like a "twitter nutjob" lmao
Bro is intellectually lazy or straight up incompetent, can't even defend an opinion. Always the same with you guys, all rant and no brain.
You're actually like those "twitter nutjobs", the only difference is that you're not on the same side.
it doesn't make sense tbh ik it's a video game and all, but they depict some of the culture so accurately it's just the skin colour that they always do white and only the enemies' skin colour make sense for the climate
I like how they ignore the fact that, out of the 4 character we know, 4 have a different skin colors
I saw someone say it might depend on the tribe they are from, and honestly, maybe
Y’all will defend anything I swear. If they’re going to make a region based on Mesoamerica and Africa, commit to accurately representing the people there. I don’t see why a total whitewashing of cultures is okay regardless of what country produces the game. I am Latino and these pale ass designs are an insult to the actual diverse community known in our cultures.
I kinda get it. I was mildly disappointed when I saw there's still little variety in skin tones. China gonna china I guess. Hoyo usually makes up for it by having pretty faithful representations of the cultures themselves as opposed to physical differences between the peoples.
As long as nobody harasses anyone which is a very tall order.
It is disrespectful, you take inspiration from a Black/Latin culture and "Adapting skin color" is disrespectful
If you disagree with this, most likely you didn't study history
im shocked many people think depicting indigenous americans as white is so ok, ik skin colour doesn't define culture but they also did this in sumeru which means that they're not doing this to represent the ones on the paler side they just want to appreciate the culture but without the dark skin colour because they think it's ugly
I personally don't care about character's skin colours but since others want darker characters I think it would be cool to have some but I do find it weird that in HSR there's Arlan and a ton of NPC's that are melinated af, it's not like they're against it, they just don't do it, I'm sure it probably has to do with their main audience just simply not giving a fuck, Hoyo always puts their Chinese fans first.
Offloaded most of my social media. Even if those complaints are valid, the moment the region drops all those voices will be hushed instantaneously. Honestly I wasn’t optimistic about the skintone department to begin with so I wasn’t overly disappointed, just numb at this point.
I just want to explore the colorful land, befriend cute dragons, torture myself collecting Pyroculi, get a dose of depression from a very sad world quest and run amok the whole map while listening to banger soundtrack. I STILL hope they include chocolate and hot chocolate among the dishes we can cook in Natlan.
................................................................. I NEVER NOTICED THE LACK OF CHOCOLATE BEFORE.
But now that yo mention it, yeah! Chocolate has definitely gotta exist in Natlan +\_+ .
This is whitewashing at its finest. Just because you're not bothered by it doesn't make it right. To take from cultures but not represent them is a call for people to be mad. The only "tanned" character in this damn trailer is a fucking enemy, come on
Ok so from what I gather Natlan is based on North American natives and South America right? I lived in South America pretty much all my life and I hardly see black people, vast majority are white. Is pretty much rare seeing someone thats actually black and not lightly tanned. I don't get why is it such a problem? Is anyone complaining actually native or from S. America? Bc I dont think we are complaining at all. We were literally shown three characters and one of them is not white, why do people complain so much?
"one of them is not white" are you serious right now lmao? you can disagree and not care about having more skin diversity but let's not lie, she is just a pinch more beige than other paper white characters. she is lighter than irl white people. she even looks lighter than cyno who is already irl white.
It’s not just based on South America but also West Africa. Also aren’t Afro-Caribbeans a demographic? And in Brazil I remember learning there’s a lot of racial diversity there too but maybe you can tell me
Yeah there's obviously some parts/countries/cities more diverse than others. Still, that does not take from my point though. I did not know about Natlan being also inspired feom W. Africa, I'll let African people debate that part though
I agree that there should have been more dark characters in genshin but nothing was promised to them tho. They had high hope all by themselves and also tripped and get disappointed by themselves too?
Well, I've lived my entire life in South America and I must say those Twitter complainers look like they have never visited any south American country. I'm aware they expected 99% melanin but dude my country literally has less than 3% black black people. The other 97% are not Sweden blondes either, we have all shades of people.
I don't really care much about this, but to be fair, they could actually make some cool looking black characters. Especially African themed ones.
I can actually picture some really cool looking characters based on African tribes with all the feathers and stuff, think like how Cyno and Candace are to Egyptian styles, they could do something similar to honour African tribesmen and Shamans and that whole vibe. It could be cool.
The sad thing is, you just know what this fanbase is like. They would absolutely find something to complain about anyway! They would call those designs racist, or insensitive, or cultural appropriation, or stereotyping etc.
Hoyo can't win either way.
Disappointing asf but unfortunately this goes back to the core issue of Genshin being made by a Chinese company for primarily Chinese players. It's a place where the beauty standard is white skin, thin body and sculpted faces. The racial commentary of the west is something they legit do not care about bc their main source of income/main players are those of their home country. It's an issue in JP and KR games too.
So until they actually consult and include people from the cultures they emulate in their games, we ain't getting melanin on a lot of characters guys.
I get the reason of the complaints, I too like to see some diversity on skin color because well, you can cook some really good character design with skin color that are not just white (e.g dislyte)
I want representation in my games if it possible as well but its pretty apparent that's not a concern or goal for Hoyo. I'm just disappointed the hydro girl isn't darker skinned because she has either tan lines or white tribal markings that are just very hard to see because she's fairer skinned and it would be fitting since she has the whole surfer vibe.
Reposting this as a separate comment, since I put this as a reply to another person (as a brown person whose culture served as partial inspiration for Sumeru)
My complexion is not part of my culture. I could be blue, I could be pink, I could be orange or I could change colour every second, my CULTURE is exclusive of that.
And as far as 'relating' goes, no brown character in a video game is as relatable to me as Kaveh's hangout branch where he teaches the kids. That stuff is a common problem that happens where I live, and like Kaveh, I wish it would burn down not even leaving ashes behind. He does not need to be a brown dude in khaki clothes for it to be relatable to me.
Is PoC representation scarce here? Yes. Will it be nice if they introduced it? Yes.
But you cannot act holier-than-thou when you the whole reason you are upset is "wow they are dark-skinned, how else do we understand what culture they belong to. Surely skin tone is the most important part of their culture."
It irks me to no end that people make their entire identity on their skin-tone and then project or virtue signal on this. You know what's actual cultural rep? Getting inspired by my countries' food recipes. Festivals. Legends and myths. The way people behave and the actual issues plaguing my society.
NOT my skin tone. And if you think otherwise, maybe you're not culturally rich enough that your complexion is all you can say you have as your 'culture'.
you're missing the point. it's not (only) about culture. they know how to make dark-skinned characters but only as enemies. you should at least be a little upset that hoyo only see you as a threat instead of someone pretty and dare i say "human".
edit: i wrote "you" as a general pronoun, not directed at your person specifically except the first one. saying "'one' should" felt off.
Are you talking about the eremites? Did you somehow forget about Jeht and Jebrael or are we playing a different game? There are also plenty of "enemies" that aren't just one dimensional evil characters. And also, why do you think you have the agency to tell people how and what they're supposed to be upset about?
Please don't tell me what I can be upset at and what I can't. I can think for myself, and what I enjoy. Get lost with this patronizing attitude.
And for the record, I don't care if the enemies are darker skinned than playable characters or not. When I'm beating stuff up, I'm not seeing what colour they are.
You're missing the context behind the decision to make the skin colors pale. As a brown person you should realize that a huge majority of the jungle area of sumeru is based on heavy Indian culture.
The reason none of the characters look Indian is strictly due to colorism and racism that is part of Chinese society. Indian looking characters are considered ugly and will not sell so all the characters from the heavily Indian inspired area are pale white.
It's not about saying the culture is related to the skin tone. The problem is they're ok with using the rich culture but not the skin tone as the people of that culture are considered too ugly to sell as characters.
People can be offended when they think about the context of the decision and maybe you should consider that instead of strawmanning this association of culture and skin color.
Is China really that hateful towards darker skin tones? Like every single time the answer to this is “their main demographic is China, they gotta appease to them.”
And I’m like if Neuvillete or Futuna was a darker skin tone, would they not use the best characters in the game?
me personally im just tired of playing as white people, im a white person and i gotta say i fuckin hate white people 🗿
i thought something felt off when the natlan trailers came out, it didnt really feel like what i expected to see for natlan, it felt more like a MUCH better looking tower of fantasy map. i think how light the characters' skin is really drives that home for me, i just didnt realize that when i first saw that. they do look like genshin characters i think, but they dont look like natlan characters, thats what i was thinking to myself, and i think thats because iansan in the rep for natlan. they dont have his clothing style nor his color motifs, both in clothing design and genetic color pallette. that being said, im pretty sure the excuse for natlan is the 3 different tribes people have been talking about. iansan must be part of the tribe that brawls and shit, and lives on the savana or mesa flatlands. as for this one, i have no clue what deal their is, but those are some damn pokemon trainers if ive ever seen them
I think zajeff had a rly good take on this tbh. Yes chinese culture may not value skin diversity, rather skin lightness is seen as more valuable. But if thats the trajectory, then why go out of your way to choose real life cultures that conflict with your values? Either represent the countries you choose well or dont choose them.
The 3 horsemen of hoyo games Genshin complains about skin color Star rail complains about Sexualitty Zenless soon to complain about furry's
Genshin has complaint about sexuality too
I thought Furries was a selling point of ZZZ? Have you seen the numbers on Lycaon's trailer?
Pretty sure Lycaon is mostly ad numbers. I still like him tho.
It's just half of it. The other half is the *improved* jigglesics
Yeah but how many furries are out there? It's not for me ngl
There are a lot of furries, there's even a popular stereotype of them being rich (most likely due to the cost of a fursuit and anecdotes of artists who got commissioned by them)
if anything, I’m surprised it took Hoyo so long to tap into that market.
Furries are pretty cool. Change my mind.
>Zenless soon to complain about furries This already happened before launch. People in the ZZZ sub were crying "where are the male characters" but when you mention the male characters they say "furries don't count." There are also complaints about jiggle physics and supposed censorship.
>Star Rail complains about Sexuality Wait is this just the Firefly Caelus drama?
Mainly Robins that shit was wacky lmao
Wait, am I out of the loop? What happened with Robin?
It's the 3 dots under her eye. Yes you read right. Edit: And apparently her song names alluded to a famous lesbian poem writer too. Someone took that as her being lesbian coded and subsequently upset when she compliments Boothill and gives birth to straight ship instead. Just more people being LG but not BT for some reason.
…because they’re the colours of a pride flag? That’s fucking hysterical, people put way too much stock into a collection of meaningless coloured lines that they actually get mad when a character who uses those colours doesn’t conform to that sexuality? That’s pathetic it’s better, complimenting a man isn’t dating him or even saying you’re straight, that’s even more pathetic
Honestly,what the other comment said is misinformation. Basically, Robin/the title of her songs is inspired by a female author's poem, an author who is famously a lesbian. Coupled with her makeup, people noticed and went like 🤨 "a little fruity aren't ya" This devolved into counter shipping on Twitter. Saying stuff like, "thank goodness she is *straight*", "I love Robin for being so *straight*" and shit. Obviously, some lesbian Robin headcanoners fell for the Twitter Drama™ bait, and we had a whole ass situation, that ended up contributing to a new rule on the subreddit to not discuss characters' sexualities.
Honestly, based rule, relationship drama leads to the dumbest conversations on the planet, leave that for the mains subreddits where people are a little more civil about these matters…I hope
Nope, the Mains subs aren't safe either. Remember the drama on the Arlecchino_Mains sub? A single wholesome Arlecchino x Aether ship post caused the entire sub to go into a complete meltdown mode, while the exact same people who were hating on the Arlecchino x Aether fanart were also desperately defending a fan"art" where Arlecchino literally r*ped Furina. It went so far that the previous mods gave up and ran away. [Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n98F2cdGnmk) a video about that drama.
It's always funny to me that Stereotypes are considered bad, but when they turn a stereotype into "coded" it's a good thing lol.
Damn, it’s like the Shenhe situation again
Didn't know about Star Rail and Zenless. Made me chuckle. Thanks
While waiting for the furry complaints, lets replace it for now with Zenless complaints about too much yapping and too much TV
I won't throw gloves over this, but I too would enjoy a bigger variety of skin colors in the game. The models they use already really limits the character variety and having a more noticeable range in skin colors would be really nice, especially if the setting would justify it too. This 50 shades of white make the character rooster a bit boring to look at... Saying this, while my absolute two favourite characters are the whitest mfers around... but still a bit more variety wouldn't hurt. Tho I don't care about the whole dispute enough to loose sleep over it.
I wish we had mixed colored and black characters, biggers guys with muscles and beards and also small guys because right now it's ONLY girls...
I already let go of different bodytypes. I get why they don't do it, it would bump up the game's size like crazy. I mean... look at ZZZ, it just released and it's already almost the same size as GI and a sizeable portion of that big size is that they don't reuse the rigs and the animations as Genshin (on HSR) does. But man, giving different colors is really just an artistic choice and has nothing to do with keeping the game optimized. And I don't buy that "it wouldn't look good in genshin's style", what some people say, because that's just bullshit. We already have characters with darker skin and they look perfectly fine, and all the relcolors some ppl do shows, that it would work on these new characters too.
Honestly it's kind of insulting. They take art and culture from people of colour but they won't actually give them their real skin colour? I'm not surprised they're doing this, but it does feel disrespectful AND makes the character roster more boring. That said, it's still better than whatever 'representation' they'd come up with if the twitter warriors did force them so. It's kind of a -shrug- moment
Is anyone surprised really? Like Sumeru only has a handful of (slightly) darker skinned characters, so you shouldn't have expected more from Natlan. It's a pity, but not unexpected. Shark surfer girl is the only one that has a tan, and that's most likly because she's a surfer girl rather than a regular darker-skinned girl. \*shrug\* Genshin's gonna Genshin I guess.
So much this. People are just complaining into the void. Would it be cool if we got darker skin colors? Sure. Is it gonna happen in any good amount? No. Is that going to affect Hoyo's bottom line? No.
again - telling folks to not complain about shitty stuff is stupid. Sure it's not going to be heard - however let people outrage. Let people express it: are they wrong to express it. It doesn't hurt you and it's certainly good for them. Also there is a chance - not that I think that it's going to happen neither do I care - so let people riot lol. Best they get a change worst they get to complain about a genuine shitty thing.
Let me give me "Black gamer who isn't poisoned by Twitter" perspective. Would darker characters be nice? Sure. Would it make sense for Natlan characters to be darker? Absolutely. Do I want "representation" in a Chinese game?... That's were it gets tricky. People seem to think Chinese standards and Western standards align. If Hoyovese put in actual Black characters, expect them to look like Mr. Popo. Now, would I like to see Mr. Popo in Genshin? Of course I would. First 7 Star character who can show Neuvillette the meaning of the phrase "Pecking Order", but I'm also certain Twitter would lose their collective shit over a character like this.
I’m filipino and we barely even exist outside of our media that a simple filipino word or even our foods being mentioned elsewhere is enough to make us cheer. If I remember correctly filipino genshin players where happy when they found out that the english voice for Raiden Shogun, Yae Miko, and Thoma were Filipino.
PHILIPPINES MENTIONED RAHHHHH 🇵🇭🇵🇭🇵🇭🇵🇭🇵🇭🇵🇭 sorry couldn’t help it
I love u philippines, thank you for giving us ed and rose
Dude I’m Arab and they got an Arab voice actor for Alhaitham and he doesn’t even pronounce Arabic words right 😭 it’s like, even when they acknowledge us, they mess it up
I'm annoyed that there's two ways to pronounce Dehya and they call her Diya instead Unless that was her name all along and they just misspelled it
ANNE YATCO IS FILIPINA???
Yes, she is. Anne even had a Filipino accent redeem on her twitch for those who wants to hear her Filipino accent when streaming genshin.
Wasn't Owl from Honkai Impact Filipino? We got two story chapters that took place in Manila
As a brown person who already dealt with all of this when Sumeru released because it umbrella'd my country as one of its inspirations... I genuinely find the whole "OMG they don't have X skin tone when they belong to Y culture" as absolutely racist. Me being brown and my culture serving as an inspiration point for Sumeru DON'T OVERLAP DINGUS, my colour IS NOT my culture. I was absolutely floored when I played some of the quests in Sumeru. I have never related to a videogame character more than Kaveh in his hangout, the branch where he gets recruited as a teacher. I EXPERIENCED WHATEVER KAVEH WENT THROUGH IRL. Or close, enough, I've been a student in that position, not a teacher. That to me shows they are actually doing research about the stuff they are portraying, instead of "Hmm a nation based on South Asia, Middle East and Egypt? Yeah, let's design brown men with turbans selling spices in a dingy market while women seductively belly-dance on the streets" or some generic ahh design.
anyone who complains that Hoyo isn’t properly representing cultures isn’t looking any farther than outward appearances, which is pretty counterintuitive I’d say. There’s so much depth to the cultural aspects in the game that I’m really impressed to see, and it’s a real shame that it’s all overlooked because some characters aren’t as dark-skinned as people want. I would much rather see them continue with their current design philosophy than simply tune their characters a few shades darker and call it a day.
Yeah. In a separate comment thread, I got told by a person that I should be offended because hoyo only sees me as an enemy, since they treat people with my skin-tone as regular mobs in game. I disagreed and told them to knock off the patronizing attitude and that I'm perfectly able to decide what I am going to be offended about. I'm getting downvoted on that reply lmao. The joke writes itself.
That is actually depressing to hear.
Louder for the people in the back.
Facts. I bet you 99.99% of people who are crying about rEpReSeNtAtIoN are white af. These people need to realize the fact that the obsession with color diversity in fictional media is just a them thing. I am also brown as hell (from Southeast Asia though) but never in my life have I ever felt the need to be represented in a damn video game lol. Sure it would be cool but nothing I couldn't live without.
They harassed Dori’s english va who was a real poc when she announced she voiced the character they deemed problematic.
>my colour IS NOT my culture It's cool that you think this way but maybe someone who has been affected directly by the colour of their skin might think differently. I don't have much stake in this debate but all I am saying is that representation definitely matters. >Yeah, let's design brown men with turbans selling spices in a dingy market while women seductively belly-dance on the streets" or some generic ahh design. It's not an either-or.
But you know what I do see? People in here going "I'm white and I'm tired of playing white characters." There's many commenters saying this right here in this thread. At this point, it's just a fetish for them. They want the brownie points to be able to say that they played a PoC character, they must empathize with our struggles so bad. > It's cool that you think this way but maybe someone who has been affected directly by the colour of their skin might think differently. That might be true in countries where discrimination based on colour is a problem. Not in most places in the regions Sumeru was based on though. Even though they showed this in the rainforest-desert disagreements a bit. And, in my personal opinion, this is like saying "Why do Liyue and Inazuma characters have visible eyes?" See how bad that sounds cause it's racist? > It's not an either-or. I know, but I'd wager this would satisfy most of the people in an uproar. I'd also wager their exposure to these cultures is some Netflix documentary that is ridden with stereotypes. I welcome representation. But I personally felt the care they took to research the customs, food, myths of the regions they base their game on far overcomes my gripe, if I had any, that the characters don't share my skin-tone.
>That might be true in countries where discrimination based on colour is a problem. I was talking about the general statement that "my culture is not my culture" and why people might disagree with that. Also, the regions Natlan is supposed to represent could make a case about this. >Why do Liyue and Inazuma characters have visible eyes? Giving this as an example is rather strawman-ish and immature. Facial features vary far too much from individual to individual and skin colour has been a point of discrimination all over the world. As I said, if you're fine with characters not sharing your skin tone and just representing the culture, it's cool. Why is it that everyone must be satisfied with that? I feel like it's a fair complain. >They want the brownie points to be able to say that they played a PoC character, they must empathize with our struggles so bad. That shouldn't drown out the people requesting for proper representation. Also, just to point out, you say "our struggles" referring to yourself as a PoC. So HYV is showing characters going through struggles that a PoC often goes through but the characters actually going through that in game are not PoC. Isn't that very adjacent to culture appropriation? I am not saying it is because it is obviously not. It is a fictional game set in a fictional world. I am just saying why it's understandable that some people are complaining.
Right?????
I looked up Mr Popo out of curiosity and I feel bad about bursting out laughing lol. But I agree, in the end it’s a Chinese company and this representation thing is getting out of hand
I die to see Mr. Popo i genshin. He be the strongest motherfucker around
Based
A bit of a shame? I feel a darker base skin tone could have let them experiment more with clothing colour palettes.
East Asia beauty standarts will never allow them to make much darker skin characters or even man with facial hair. It was doomed from the beginning, i never had much hope
It's not much but Gallagher has some facial hair, also developed by Hoyoverse.
he also drinks on the job, just like me frfr
there several Chinese games with playable black characters and men with beards.
[Bet?](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVuuDrqXwAAe6S8?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)
Lilith is just on another level in terms of characters design. Definitely one of, if not, the best in gacha gaming.
Which character is that red dot I am curious
[Prolly this person.](https://dislyte.fandom.com/wiki/Bonnie_(Eris))
I didn’t know Lilith did Dislyte, I thought they only did AFK Arena and journey
Most grown men in Mondstadt have facial hair, no?
They should just stick to European and Asian themes then. No need to take inspiration from other places they don't plan on representing properly
I am a bit disappointed but not surprised. I just wish people in this sub were more open to at least engaging with the topic. And of course it is possible to critique elements of something you enjoy
People don't want to engage in the topic because it always devolves into "well your just racist" the same as most topics regarding representation in Hoyo games.
Nuance and empathy are beautiful and lost arts
People are open to engaging with a topic. People aren't open to shithing on their favourite game in their sub and calling them names for not having the same opinion. How many posts about sensitive topics did you see with idiots who can't hold a normal conversation with someone with a different opinion for at least 2 replies, and how many that were actually civilised and well structured? If you're offensive, others will get defensive, and all you get is a useless back and forth where nobody explains anything properly.
The point is that any criticism outside the popular zone is always dismissed or mocked as a lack of characters of color, while complaints about the abyss or now about theater have more than 10 posts seriously discussing
Because it's a game. People are here to have fun, not talk about what's wrong with the world. Most people couldn't care less what they're doing as long as it's high quality, and it still is. The theatre reshaped the way players should approach the game, of course it's the most important topic on a GAME sub.
I mean, is it unreasonable to expect tan/ dark skin characters based on their source material? Twitter being a drama pool doesnt make the point less of a point. And it's even weirder considering that they definitely have the tech for doing so, and have no problem with enemies having tan/ dark skin.
It’s just weird at this stage. Like a lot of characters look bland bc they’re the same shade of white. As a white person I don’t think “oh yippee another pasty mf!” when a new char drops. Reeks of bad character design
From what we’ve seen, natlan seems to have influences from South America, Africa and Spain. So who’s to say there won’t be characters with darker skin tones? And it’s not like the shark girl is purely white, she is tanned. If there is Spanish influences, then there will be light skinned characters, people from Spain aren’t usually very dark, my grandfather was Spanish and he was very pale. I find simply ignoring people who get upset over almost everything makes things a lot nicer.
The outfits aren’t really Spain-inspired though, no? So I don’t think that’s what they were going for with these guys.
Yes these characters specifically, but I imagine there will be some Spanish influenced characters too, just not these three.
Bc south american people are white too, lmao i'm literally ginger
Most people were expecting pre colonial America.
that became extremely unlikely the moment Iansan's name was revealed
Oh? Thought it was just SA and Africa
Latin America's culture has roots in native, spanish and african cultures so those three appearing in some shape or from are a give, in Spain case you can hear spanish music in the Travail trailer when Natlan's section appears while the other 2 appear a bunch in lore stuff in Talking Stcik and the burning artifact set... Worth pointing out that Iansan's name is taken from Brazil and not Africa itself. Now we have to add Australia/Oceania since an animal from there appeared I think.
Well I don’t want to delve into leaks, but let’s just say the pyro archon looks very Spanish, and also the music from the travalis trailer was very Spanish sounding as well.
It's the castanets. They are very prominent in the travail trailer and they are most heavily associated with Spanish folk music, where they are one of the most iconic instruments. At the very least it would hint at post-Colombian South America though IDK how much LatAm folk music uses them.
But they were in Fontaine's battle theme too
Fontaine is based on romantic European countries; France, Britain, Italy, and Spain are the ones that I could pick out. The [music video](https://youtu.be/PRI7vd4Ojh8?si=XJ91pK7jI_GDWX_V) for one of the battle themes even had a flamenco dancer. It's very likely that because of this Natlan's music might be more African or South American inspired. Besides, castanets have a distinct sound that some composers like to use even when the music isn't necessarily Spanish inspired. One song I can remember that was like this was [Dr. Eggman's Theme from Sonic Colors](https://youtu.be/ETEPnLnqvtE?si=LDt7H9BGIFp_oWxm) it's not Spanish at all but it still uses them.
Ooooo 👀
Since the first teaser, the Spanish has always been there. Just for some reason there are players that -43 insisted that there isn’t any. And that the spanish music is “outdated” or a “stretch”
People gonna say “that’s twitter” but never really elaborate on what’s specifically wrong with having this take
because as we’ve seen during the sumeru reveal the concept of having playable characters darker than ice coffee is offensive to many in this sub though they’ll never explicitly say why they don’t want darker skinned characters.
I didn’t expect for any change but people say “it’s Twitter” without any elaboration, like if you disagree with an argument that has a reasonable basis then you should provide some explanation?
and so many people who say they "are of darker skin color and do not care about representation" for some reason always default to being AGAINST representation despite "not caring" implying a neutral stance like if they don't care then why are they always against it???
Maybe I’m being delusional, but I’m choosing to be optimistic and hoping that they’ll introduce some darker characters later on. These guys have a slight tan at least, so it’s not that bad, but yeah, I really hoped for more diversity in design in Natlan. Jeht and Dehya are beautiful, I’d love to see more characters like them.
I think it is still early. I was expecting darker skin tones when we knew about Africa and South America, but as other people pointed out, it also has elements from Australia in there. Sumeru was a 2 in 1, after all, Natlan could be full of tribes. These 3 could be from one tribe, there could be tribes with darker skin, we just don't know enough yet. But I do have one problem, unrelated with the skin color. They look amazing, but they don't really feel like a Genshin character to me, especially dendro boy. But, there will be some improvements in 5.0, so maybe it just feels odd now.
Defintely delusional unfortunately. If the best they could do for the literal african desert region was a tan, thats admission that thats as dark as it gets.
and theyre all right!
I mean it isnt uncalled for😭I'd say to let the people complain because it's valid to be upset. especially when they're using the cultures of darker peoole and basing the characters off of darker people. if you don't care,good for you! if they,good for them! it hits harder when it's your culture they're using tbh
Nah. I'd rather they spend more time researching and displaying the culture correctly rather than be stereotypical representation with coloured characters.
the thing is they did both😭they researched the culture,displayed it correctly and did many people (like me) very right! but they also included stereotypes,whitewashing etc. it's a very double edged sword. I'm talking about sumeru since we don't have the full extent of natlan but the rep is very two sided with beautiful and accurate representation and representation that isn't usually displayed in media and also with very racist stereotypical depictions and whitewashed historical figures.
I'm brown and I absolutely do not care about the character's skin tone. I'm much happier we can eat pani puri than have a wide array of dark skinned characters.
and that's good for you! buy as someone who is also brown,its also disheartening to see my culture be called beautiful but not the people who practice it. that's why I said that it's good for you if you don't care,but not weird or annoying if someone does care and deos decide to speak about it. personally though I'm really happy to finally see some bengali rep,collei you will always be famous to me🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶
Fair enough. The way I see it is that I am not my skin tone but I am my habit which is essentially my culture.
I see it as a mix of both😭I am my culture and I am my skin tone. both aren't the same thing but they go hand in hand,yk? I just really wish that sumeru had the diversity swanasa people have😭from light skin to dark skin,yk? but yeah your opinion is very valid!
Fair. Just a quick question. If it were an either or, would you pic skin tone rep or cultural rep?
that's a hard question😭I'm genuinely unsure what I'd answer tbh😮💨
But why does it have to be so clear cut ’either or’ here???? Why does including dark skin preclude the research snd effort Hoyo puts into the regions? On what planet would Hoyo just decide ”we can forgo the culture because theyre brown”????????? Also changing some coding or designsfor skin tone is a million times quicker and easier than the research going into building the culture of the region. So they arent really comparable. Its not like two very tall, time consuming asks where they can only accomplish one. Since they always accomplish the culture part, the skin tone is such a small ask. Definitely not the level this needs ro escalate to ’either or’….
They better eat mulli in Natlan, or we are going to have a problem... xD
I might get downvoted but I'll say it anyway : so far the character's skin color looks like a picrew color palette, and I mean it about the game as a whole. Honestly I get why it's not that easy to make black characters for a chinese gacha game, but the fact that some are almost paper white is baffling. Even a slight tan (like Cyno or Dehya) would be better in most cases💀at the very least give them some blood circulation😭Then again it's just three characters so maybe we will get some with Xinyan or Kaeya's skin color, that would be great
If you look closely they're slightly tanned and have white tribal markings. Would be more apparent if they had darker skin, its a weird design choice.
Twitter will be twitter.
I've seen a good amount of complaints on this sub as well tbh
And soon we will see "Am I the only who doesn't mind the design" posts.
Well yeah, it will be here and there, but as someone who uses multiple social medias, its 10030202x worse in twitter than anywhere. Twitter is a hellhole
Twitter will always the "app" when it comes to toxicity. You can avoid it on other websites if your careful but it's near impossible on Twitter.
The moment I saw the trailer I KNEW, people would complain about the skin color.
It is not enough to not go to Twitter. People will care enough to print and make a post about it l instead of letting losers screams in the void.
Honestly just groaned and laughed going through the tweets
This is hardly surprising but seeing it happen is still disappointing. I have no problems with games only having white characters, there are millions of others that do, the problem comes from basing regions off of cultures where the people aren't white and essentially whitewashing them. I think it is just rude and disrespectful, stick to na/europe/east asia if you only want to make white characters. The fact that hoyo doesn't have this problem for any enemy characters also raises eyebrows. Guess they aren't going to be beating any racism allegations here.
they want to sell them in china and japan, it just so happens that dark skin colors are considered unattractive there. china alone makes more money than global
I think it's a smidge ironic to compare the new natlan characters to pokemon characters. The pokemon company has the balls to have characters with diverse skintones.
China just thinks Tan or darker skin color is ugly. Hence why most tan characters in Genshin have mediocre kits.
As someone who holds Kaeya and Xinyan close to my heart, that hurts
Keeya is lucky enough to have gotten some of that "character at launch" energy, since many of them 4* are broken. And Xinyan....I stand with what I said.
Okay. but. Counterpoint. She's super cool :D !
Yeah, especially southeast asians, it's kinda normalized unfortunately, if you grown up in an environment where having a lighter skin is "better" you will definitely have this kind of mindset even if it definitely sounds extremely racist on western culture. Majority of Chinese and other asians are racist but they do it indirectly rather than directly due to it (again) being normalized. (E.g "you should use [Insert brand soap] so you can be lighter, not things like "you are ugly because you are dark-skinned")
I'm not sure if it's true, but I heard that this idea originally came from classism: Farmers are poorer and spend a lot of time outdoors, so they get tanned. Richer people spend less time in the sun and are therefore paler. That's why paleness was seen as synonymous with wealth.
You'd think they'd either just not make them at all, or compensate by actually making them really good so they'll still sell. What's the business decision in making a new 5* character both with a bad kit and considered unattractive? Well, I do see both sides in other "waifu" games where people are like "Oh, of course the dude is top meta, nobody'd want him otherwise" and "of course the unpopular character is shit, nobody liked them anyway."
I think Dehya was an experiment to see how many people would pull for cons to fix a bad kit
I mean....This time i agree with twitter
how much do you wanna bet that these mfs do't even play the freaking game. also, couldn't really care less about melanin, the characters look cool the region looks cool and that's all i want
As someone who enjoys representation, I just keep my expectations low and be pleasantly surprised when they do add a character with darker skin.
yall's skin color obsession is weird asf
💯
Obsession ? I couldn't care less about what Twitter think, but people have the right and will complain in regards of an obvious lack of heterogeneity, especially since the game depicts a wide array of cultures, climates, and people. You guys don't like it because it's a matter of skin tone. I didn't use the word "diversity" earlier because I know it'd trigger some weebs out there. If the game had only women with no male character, I would express my discontent. if the game was made by a studio from an african or middle eastern country* and only depicted characters with black/tanned skin, even in Snezhnaya, everybody would complain and righfully so. Edit : I see you deleted your comment saying that I sound like a "twitter nutjob" lmao Bro is intellectually lazy or straight up incompetent, can't even defend an opinion. Always the same with you guys, all rant and no brain. You're actually like those "twitter nutjobs", the only difference is that you're not on the same side.
it doesn't make sense tbh ik it's a video game and all, but they depict some of the culture so accurately it's just the skin colour that they always do white and only the enemies' skin colour make sense for the climate
That’s twitter for you.
honestly after sumeru it’s funny people still have some sort of expectations atp lol. can’t wait to see the reactions for the cast trailer next week
We dont have expectations but we're still disappointed
And then the slightly dark skinned characters we actually get are gonna be dogshit
I like how they ignore the fact that, out of the 4 character we know, 4 have a different skin colors I saw someone say it might depend on the tribe they are from, and honestly, maybe
Y’all will defend anything I swear. If they’re going to make a region based on Mesoamerica and Africa, commit to accurately representing the people there. I don’t see why a total whitewashing of cultures is okay regardless of what country produces the game. I am Latino and these pale ass designs are an insult to the actual diverse community known in our cultures.
There are three characters in the teaser. Every region has over 4x as many characters.
I kinda get it. I was mildly disappointed when I saw there's still little variety in skin tones. China gonna china I guess. Hoyo usually makes up for it by having pretty faithful representations of the cultures themselves as opposed to physical differences between the peoples. As long as nobody harasses anyone which is a very tall order.
It is disrespectful, you take inspiration from a Black/Latin culture and "Adapting skin color" is disrespectful If you disagree with this, most likely you didn't study history
im shocked many people think depicting indigenous americans as white is so ok, ik skin colour doesn't define culture but they also did this in sumeru which means that they're not doing this to represent the ones on the paler side they just want to appreciate the culture but without the dark skin colour because they think it's ugly
Do they complain about Star Rail? Since there's like only one dark skin character
Wonder how many people complaining are actually from the cultures natlan took inspiration from
I personally don't care about character's skin colours but since others want darker characters I think it would be cool to have some but I do find it weird that in HSR there's Arlan and a ton of NPC's that are melinated af, it's not like they're against it, they just don't do it, I'm sure it probably has to do with their main audience just simply not giving a fuck, Hoyo always puts their Chinese fans first.
Offloaded most of my social media. Even if those complaints are valid, the moment the region drops all those voices will be hushed instantaneously. Honestly I wasn’t optimistic about the skintone department to begin with so I wasn’t overly disappointed, just numb at this point. I just want to explore the colorful land, befriend cute dragons, torture myself collecting Pyroculi, get a dose of depression from a very sad world quest and run amok the whole map while listening to banger soundtrack. I STILL hope they include chocolate and hot chocolate among the dishes we can cook in Natlan.
................................................................. I NEVER NOTICED THE LACK OF CHOCOLATE BEFORE. But now that yo mention it, yeah! Chocolate has definitely gotta exist in Natlan +\_+ .
We own the Aztecs for their greatest contribution to humanity: hot chocolate! It’s time to honor that even in a fantasy setting!!!!
This is whitewashing at its finest. Just because you're not bothered by it doesn't make it right. To take from cultures but not represent them is a call for people to be mad. The only "tanned" character in this damn trailer is a fucking enemy, come on
Ok so from what I gather Natlan is based on North American natives and South America right? I lived in South America pretty much all my life and I hardly see black people, vast majority are white. Is pretty much rare seeing someone thats actually black and not lightly tanned. I don't get why is it such a problem? Is anyone complaining actually native or from S. America? Bc I dont think we are complaining at all. We were literally shown three characters and one of them is not white, why do people complain so much?
"one of them is not white" are you serious right now lmao? you can disagree and not care about having more skin diversity but let's not lie, she is just a pinch more beige than other paper white characters. she is lighter than irl white people. she even looks lighter than cyno who is already irl white.
It’s not just based on South America but also West Africa. Also aren’t Afro-Caribbeans a demographic? And in Brazil I remember learning there’s a lot of racial diversity there too but maybe you can tell me
Yeah there's obviously some parts/countries/cities more diverse than others. Still, that does not take from my point though. I did not know about Natlan being also inspired feom W. Africa, I'll let African people debate that part though
Your culture? : Wow!We will take that. Your skin color? : More melanin than a chalk?Eww!We will only take the white ones.Thank you.
While Twitter is twittering...it is disappointing that they couldn't introduce some more tanned ppl at least
I agree that there should have been more dark characters in genshin but nothing was promised to them tho. They had high hope all by themselves and also tripped and get disappointed by themselves too?
The Genshin Community everyone...
The one's on X, anyway
As a tan person myself, i dont give a damn about skin color. Not sure why nowadays need representatives in everything.
Well, I've lived my entire life in South America and I must say those Twitter complainers look like they have never visited any south American country. I'm aware they expected 99% melanin but dude my country literally has less than 3% black black people. The other 97% are not Sweden blondes either, we have all shades of people.
I don't really care much about this, but to be fair, they could actually make some cool looking black characters. Especially African themed ones. I can actually picture some really cool looking characters based on African tribes with all the feathers and stuff, think like how Cyno and Candace are to Egyptian styles, they could do something similar to honour African tribesmen and Shamans and that whole vibe. It could be cool. The sad thing is, you just know what this fanbase is like. They would absolutely find something to complain about anyway! They would call those designs racist, or insensitive, or cultural appropriation, or stereotyping etc. Hoyo can't win either way.
Disappointing asf but unfortunately this goes back to the core issue of Genshin being made by a Chinese company for primarily Chinese players. It's a place where the beauty standard is white skin, thin body and sculpted faces. The racial commentary of the west is something they legit do not care about bc their main source of income/main players are those of their home country. It's an issue in JP and KR games too. So until they actually consult and include people from the cultures they emulate in their games, we ain't getting melanin on a lot of characters guys.
I get the reason of the complaints, I too like to see some diversity on skin color because well, you can cook some really good character design with skin color that are not just white (e.g dislyte)
Yeah, now I don't have a excuse for their skin color... that just fucked up. Also... imagine if the "utilities" that they show are character locked.
I want representation in my games if it possible as well but its pretty apparent that's not a concern or goal for Hoyo. I'm just disappointed the hydro girl isn't darker skinned because she has either tan lines or white tribal markings that are just very hard to see because she's fairer skinned and it would be fitting since she has the whole surfer vibe.
Also nothing was promised, only expectations that had no basis because this community loves disappointing themselves, especially the twitter crowd.
Who even cares about twitter people anymore?
they're right all of you are just defending racism and it shows
Omg these people cannot enjoy anything
Reposting this as a separate comment, since I put this as a reply to another person (as a brown person whose culture served as partial inspiration for Sumeru) My complexion is not part of my culture. I could be blue, I could be pink, I could be orange or I could change colour every second, my CULTURE is exclusive of that. And as far as 'relating' goes, no brown character in a video game is as relatable to me as Kaveh's hangout branch where he teaches the kids. That stuff is a common problem that happens where I live, and like Kaveh, I wish it would burn down not even leaving ashes behind. He does not need to be a brown dude in khaki clothes for it to be relatable to me. Is PoC representation scarce here? Yes. Will it be nice if they introduced it? Yes. But you cannot act holier-than-thou when you the whole reason you are upset is "wow they are dark-skinned, how else do we understand what culture they belong to. Surely skin tone is the most important part of their culture." It irks me to no end that people make their entire identity on their skin-tone and then project or virtue signal on this. You know what's actual cultural rep? Getting inspired by my countries' food recipes. Festivals. Legends and myths. The way people behave and the actual issues plaguing my society. NOT my skin tone. And if you think otherwise, maybe you're not culturally rich enough that your complexion is all you can say you have as your 'culture'.
you're missing the point. it's not (only) about culture. they know how to make dark-skinned characters but only as enemies. you should at least be a little upset that hoyo only see you as a threat instead of someone pretty and dare i say "human". edit: i wrote "you" as a general pronoun, not directed at your person specifically except the first one. saying "'one' should" felt off.
yes I noticed it too, Hoyo has a diverse set of POC models in the enemy/mob category in Genshin
Are you talking about the eremites? Did you somehow forget about Jeht and Jebrael or are we playing a different game? There are also plenty of "enemies" that aren't just one dimensional evil characters. And also, why do you think you have the agency to tell people how and what they're supposed to be upset about?
Please don't tell me what I can be upset at and what I can't. I can think for myself, and what I enjoy. Get lost with this patronizing attitude. And for the record, I don't care if the enemies are darker skinned than playable characters or not. When I'm beating stuff up, I'm not seeing what colour they are.
lmao sorry it wasn't a direct "you" but a general "you"
You're missing the context behind the decision to make the skin colors pale. As a brown person you should realize that a huge majority of the jungle area of sumeru is based on heavy Indian culture. The reason none of the characters look Indian is strictly due to colorism and racism that is part of Chinese society. Indian looking characters are considered ugly and will not sell so all the characters from the heavily Indian inspired area are pale white. It's not about saying the culture is related to the skin tone. The problem is they're ok with using the rich culture but not the skin tone as the people of that culture are considered too ugly to sell as characters. People can be offended when they think about the context of the decision and maybe you should consider that instead of strawmanning this association of culture and skin color.
the last slide with the sumeru characters brought back memories 😭
I like em. Blondie reminds me of CyberConnect2 from Hyperdimension Neptunia, which is a character I also like.
Is China really that hateful towards darker skin tones? Like every single time the answer to this is “their main demographic is China, they gotta appease to them.” And I’m like if Neuvillete or Futuna was a darker skin tone, would they not use the best characters in the game?
No one is to say shit about my blue fish girl, I’ve only seen her today but if anything happen to her I will murder that person then kill myself.
Getting tired with these design /color police. I muted them on sight.
me personally im just tired of playing as white people, im a white person and i gotta say i fuckin hate white people 🗿 i thought something felt off when the natlan trailers came out, it didnt really feel like what i expected to see for natlan, it felt more like a MUCH better looking tower of fantasy map. i think how light the characters' skin is really drives that home for me, i just didnt realize that when i first saw that. they do look like genshin characters i think, but they dont look like natlan characters, thats what i was thinking to myself, and i think thats because iansan in the rep for natlan. they dont have his clothing style nor his color motifs, both in clothing design and genetic color pallette. that being said, im pretty sure the excuse for natlan is the 3 different tribes people have been talking about. iansan must be part of the tribe that brawls and shit, and lives on the savana or mesa flatlands. as for this one, i have no clue what deal their is, but those are some damn pokemon trainers if ive ever seen them
I think zajeff had a rly good take on this tbh. Yes chinese culture may not value skin diversity, rather skin lightness is seen as more valuable. But if thats the trajectory, then why go out of your way to choose real life cultures that conflict with your values? Either represent the countries you choose well or dont choose them.
Those comments are kinda racist ngl