Image: Arkane Studios
Good Black characters in gaming are rare, and extraordinary Black characters are even more so. Despite the gaming industry continually improving in its portrayal of Black characters, protagonist or otherwise, it still struggles with the concept. I, like most Black gamers who have long had to deal with games that misrepresented our skin, hair, and essence for decades, simply assumed, “We will get there, Lord, when we get there.”
Then I played Deathloop, a current game that understood the assignment and made me say, “Man, to hell with that!” This game reveals that video games can provide us with amazing Black characters immediately, and that the continued failure to do so is simply a choice. Gaming needs more real Black characters, and we need them now. After feeling some type of way, I reached out to Jason Kelley, the voice of Deathloop’s amazing protagonist Colt Vahn, to discuss where so many developers go wrong when creating Black characters, and how, in Deathloop’s leads, Arkane gave us Black characters who feel real.
But before we delve into the nitty-gritty, we need to define what makes a “real” Black character. A lot of “Black” characters in games are Black-passing. Think Barret from Final Fantasy VII or Nessa from Pokémon Sword and Shield. A person that is, maybe, meant to be Black, but in all honesty, is a Spirit Halloween last-minute costume of a Black person.
Many studios create these people, and their characterization is only skin-deep. In the original Final Fantasy VII, Barret is nothing more than the “Black Buck” stereotype, a loud and abrasive, excessively violent, unintelligent brute. In layman’s terms, he’s there to be the angry Black man and little else. In contrast, a real Black character’s depth comes from a combination of their skin color and complexity as an individual. The marriage of melanin, might, malice, mystery, and majesty.
A Colt and Juliana could easily be in every game released, not just something that happens once a decade.
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Jason Kelley shared his thoughts on the fundamental failures in how game creators often approach creating Black characters. One major factor being that sometimes Blackness isn’t even part of how those characters are conceived from the beginning. “They write a character in mind, and that character is pretty flavorless. He ain’t got a lot of seasoning,” Kelley said. “And then after they’ve cast …….
Source: https://kotaku.com/deathloop-redefines-blackness-in-video-games-1848214453