If everytime you play a game and there are rarely or never any characters that don’t reflect how the real world is, your brain starts to get programmed. Subliminally, your brain gets wired (maybe even trained) to consistently see only one demographic represented all the time. Representation works in both ways — and with that, the subliminal turns to explicit. The characters will reinforce stereotypes or can enforce reality.

If you’re a gamer and majority of the time the games you play and spend hours and days on have characters that are not Black, then you are getting conditioned to think that Black characters do not exist in fiction and Black people aren’t protagonists. If 90% of the games developed have storylines for white heroes or survivors of a zombie apocalypse or saviors of humanity because they’re immune to a virus—in a subtle yet invasive way, it sends messaging that Black folk aren’t any of these things. But if you see this consistently with white characters, then that becomes the influence of your belief system.

It’s a habit that the industry has become excessively obsessed and comfortable with. The cowardice problem in the gaming industry by game developers: lack of Black protagonists.

The gaming developers play a huge role in the reaction of racists gamers having the false idea that all of society’s illusory default is white. That same unreality bleeds into fiction—the gaming world.

The repetitive developing of barely creating games with Black protagonists truly has done a major disservice to gamers and their mentality. Those gamers who feel that anytime any character or storyline centers Black characters, then it’s automatically offensive to them or simply credited to meeting some quota versus the developers’ intention to make the game that way.

Reality check: white is not default.

Some gamers and game watchers have been so conditioned To where if anytime, one out of the million characters are Black, in their minds, it’s an infringement on territory they sense entitlement to.

This practice is NOT improving the gaming industry whatsoever. And there’s no excuse to continue operating this way.

It gets repetitive, redundant and monotonous and stagnant.

It’s habitual abnormality. Because we constantly hear that “the world is diverse”, yet, in fantasy, it doesn’t ever reflect it. So which is it?

The gaming industry as a collective continues to make franchises and new games never or barely with Black protagonists, main characters and because it’s so the norm now, that the one singular time out of thousands of games, a game has a Black character, some of the gaming community is in shambles. That subset of the community acts a fool. It’s as if the industry has assaulted their entitlement. Or even when someone makes a post on sm putting the idea out there, people retaliate with all kinda circular, reductive opposition to the suggestions by simplifying it to thinking “just make a character Black”. That is not at all what we’re suggesting but because it’s been this normalized that main characters are practically never Black in gaming, this is the visceral reaction to simply suggesting reality.

For there to only be like a handful of games that are created annually with Black characters after all these years is deplorable. It’s weak. It’s pathetic. If developers would’ve been making games with more characters that are Black rather than scattering it in wide gaps of time, there would be no “outrage” for South of Midnight, Assassin's Creed Shadows’ Yasuke character (which from my understanding, is based in historical fact—and some people were still pressed about a historical figure), Mafia III.

It’s so rare that some within the gaming community fr think they aren’t realistic or it’s merely meeting “agendas”. Continuing to sprinkle Black side characters or sprinkle games that center Black characters here and there is how we have the climate in the community now. This is why we hear the recycled “woke” script left behind in the comment section on uploads of gamers’ walkthroughs and twitch streams from people anytime one out of a million games has a Black main character. Because of the industry’s incessant, redundant pattern of exclusive, segregated behavior. The industry has made this too regular that anything that isn’t that is irregular.

Expansion of creating games with Black main characters becomes “political”. They’ve set such a bad precedent of barely making the protagonists Black, that racist gamers are triggered to just function in their bigotry and use their bastardized stamp of our word “woke” to any games that have Black main characters. They’ll leave behind their “woke” and “diversity” comments on videos like those words are slurs because the gaming industry has very much indirectly and directly aided and abetted them to think this way.

And no, one single Black character in a game is not a quota met. No matter if they’re not the main character. If not that, it’s the typical Black character that gets the designated ancillary role. OR the single Black character gets bodied or bitten within their introduction chapter or you get a good 7 minutes of play until they go onto glory (David, Marvin, Tyrell). It isn’t reality or inclusion, it’s the facade of diversity because they’re disposable characters that only feed the storyline rather than being integral to it — because they didn’t survive. The only Black characters are incidental (or probably even accidental) to the plot. Or just fillers to meet the “we put a Black character in the game, see”. If they’re always dying within 15 minutes or right when they’re introduced, then it’s continuing the tired trope. They also shouldn’t get “the help” treatment either. Which is another trope that gets put on cycle. So, you did nothing special at all.

It’s BORING! And they’ve normalized the boring.

There are so many characters in countless franchises that have healed themselves and come back from their infected states but the few Black characters are just full stop RIP?

Are they not bored? Bored of the wash, rinse and repeat?

Whole franchises since 96 with over a dozen versions, remakes, editions, variations, part 2s, part 3s, 8, 9 and 10s, dlcs, side quests etc and a slew of different character storylines to continue the universe—got 8, 29, 50 Resident Evils and only one has a Black lead (isn’t it co-op?). Sheva is the only Black main character for all of RE. Or when they finally decide to be real and have an option for a Black main character, it’s the end of the partnership with the developers and the company and they parted ways so it seems like a leftover (Little Nightmares).

The incessant side character typecasting but not side quests characters. Or again, they’re offed right away (the only Black character either gets impelled, partially decapitated or turned). Black characters aren’t an accessory.

At the very minimum, they could make a demo with a Black character. But alas, even that isn’t an idea to break their immoderate norm. But because some franchises are so celebrated and have decades under their belt, I don’t think the franchise gets that criticism. And imo, mods don’t count.

Isn’t that mundane? Perpetuating unrealism even within fiction?

Let’s say developers don’t want to make more Black protagonists…what about antagonists? I mean, they can be bosses that the protagonist have to battle, right? They ain’t even doing this.

They never develop it regularly— if you do something on a regular basis, that becomes the norm and it wouldn’t feel like an abnormality. So much so that it’s just now getting to a point where there’s actual customization for different hairstyles for the Black characters. it took y’all forever to finally feature styles other than an Afro. Now, it’s locs + a fro! (but even that is so limited because the half-shaved locs is getting so oversaturated). Still loads of work needs to be done.

Developers don’t want to make more Black protagonists or Black main characters of their games. It’s a choice. It is a pervasive choice with how oversaturated and excessive the redundancy is.

If they made a choice to do it more often than how it’s been, regularly do it, there will be no room for the faux backlash of “diversifying” your games. Were Amanda the Adventurer and South of Midnight the only 2 games of 2025 that had Black characters as the main? Don’t yall think this is pretty unacceptable? Isn’t that very unreal? (And the whole excuses of Black people didn’t exist in xyz era is crap. Or when some use the tired “Black people aren’t part of my everyday world” makes you sound rather simple because all the outlandish things in games aren’t part of your everyday world such as lickers, Mr.X but that’s repetitive with white main characters with zero requirement to be real).

It’s starting to feel like some developers and creators bank and rely on the faux outrage so that they can fall back on the “see, when we do make games with Black protagonists, they don’t do well” only to be able to repeat the cycle.

Tbh, I think they rely on this and it’s a plus that they can so they don’t have to be inclusive. To be able to fall on those default responses — 1-Black characters aren’t marketable 2–majority of games are developed outside of America and Black people are a small demographic outside of America 3–there’s a lack of Black workforce in gaming

These are weak excuses.

Black American culture is global. Black American influence is global. People all around the world watch what we do as an ethnic group and that influence is seen in how people dress like us, talk like us, dance like us, sing like us, rap like us, play sports like us, style their hair like us …. So those excuses are unacceptable. Our cultural markers here get dispersed globally and get mirrored by those outside of America so there’s zero reason to not also reflect that in gaming.

And the workforce of not hiring Black people…? Why is this still happening?

(movie tangent)

Y’all remember the scene from Hidden Figures — where Taraji P Henson, who plays Katherine Johnson makes her colleagues aware that the reason she’s consistently away from her work station for 40 minutes a day is because she has to trek around the entire campus to relieve herself in the only ONE colored restroom? How it’s an inconvenience just to do that and all her white peers never even had to think twice about it?

This is the gaming industry in a nutshell.

They inundated the world with the consistent “default” they want to keep pushing AND then when they finally break from that false sense of the real world, some consumers automatically are enraged! You’ve already programmed your audience to the fiction so the nonfiction becomes a trigger to them.

Also, with this same scene in HF, I read that never really happened—when Katherine’s boss tore down the restrooms’ “COLOREDS” sign. But of course, to at least make one white person the “good one” you have to insert the white savior complex to keep the trope alive to coddle the white audience. Same goes in gaming. South of Midnight shouldn’t feel like a finally. Nor should it feel like a checkmark to wait until another 15 years to create a game with a Black protagonist.

Some games will come out glitchy as heck and crash prone but barely ever get the criticism to the same degree as South of Midnight did. That’s because the industry created this attitude around gaming. It’s a standard that almost only gets assigned to the games with Black protagonists and the card of perfection must be met and that’s very odd.

It’s cowardice that Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory changed from Black to white when the writer wrote him as Black. It wasn’t going to get made if he didn’t concede.

What’s underwhelming is that across entirely different companies, everyone very much is copying storylines and creating replicas. Or even the same developers keep making the same thing just in different eras… The Quarry is Until Dawn from many years ago but they still didn’t even choose to make it different in any sense. Everything is the same. Friends go on a trip to some spooky cabin and the entire friend group is white except the only nonwhite person is a biracial Black man. What could’ve been refreshing is possibly having 2 Black friends instead of the quota one.

I want to know if this monotony is not boring to the developers. Isn’t the recycling banal? No?

And the cyclical excuse of “well, we can only make games from our perspective.” Stop acting like you’re in the 1920s AND HIRE BLACK DEVELOPERS, BLACK ARTISTS AND BLACK WRITERS who have equal talent, skill, knowledge and experience to make the games from THEIR perspective. No, you don’t have to make games with Black protagonists written/created/designed by a non-Black person when you can hire a Black writer/creator/designer. Just do it.

The maintaining of this methodology is easy. Almost safe for appeal. To keep catering to the loudest, wrong feedback.

(on this real quick) Is the multiracial casting approach reserved only for fantasy films with Black protagonists?

The multicultural/colorblind ensemble requirement seems to strictly be a phenomenon when Black characters are the main characters in fantasy, mythology and musicals.

Whether it’s a remake or original, it’s a recurring theme.

Why does casting always have to be so overly exaggerated in diversity when we’re at the center of fantasy and mythology? Brandy as Cinderella, Halle as Ariel, Journey in Jingle Jangle, Tiana in The Princess and the Frog. (I get that both Cinderella and Ariel and Tiana are original stories of white women; so there’s not much criticism I have there).

It seems like the films or musicals that are Black lead are forced with the “represent every ethnic group” card when no one else has to do that.

Even when it comes down to parentage:

Brandy’s Cinderella…she has a white stepmom, one Black sister and one white sister; the Asian prince (the actor is Filipino but I don’t think his specific ethnicity was ever a focal point as the character) has a Black mother and a white father — Halle’s Ariel…her father is said to be white Hispanic (based on the actor’s ethnicity) with all her siblings being all different ethnicities.

Gonna include the gaming industry as well — Hazel Flood has a Black mother and white father; Lincoln Clay from Mafia III and it’s assumed his father is white Italian and mother is Black Dominican.

I’m Not sure why there’s a need to pivot away from having a Black main character have two Black parents. Do developers and some writers have a notion that Black is synonymous with biracial?

Then to also continue with the multiracial motif, Princess Tiana didn’t get married to a Black prince, Halle’s Ariel also didn’t get married to a Black prince and neither did Brandy’s Cinderella.

But notice, no other Disney characters are forced to create this unrealistic world. It’s reserved for the only (and few) Black led characters for this genre.

I get that the idea of visually seeing diversity seems to solve the “race” problem in escapism but why must our characters and stories have to be the ones to lesson-give?

(back to video games)