tbh this conversation has been had before about genshin but this applies to arknights too but like. literally any time the question of "why are characters that are supposed to be dark skinned so white" pops up with chinese games the answer is always chinese colourism. its such a big part of chinese beauty standards with the association of dark skin with working class manual labourers and pale skin with wealth and education because of the history of social classes in china. so characters who are meant to come across as beautiful or handsome and refined are almost always going to be pale skinned, and the dark skinned characters are usually brawns over brains
obv this colourism feeds into racism, because of the association of pale skin with intelligence and wealth, and of dark skin with manual labour and the working class. its not uncommon for chinese people to hold this view about others, both in and out of the sinosphere. so like, yeah, this is a societal problem in chinese culture, and i kinda wish conversations about its reflection in chinese mobile games addressed it more often, cause it feels like its never brought up