‘Genshin Impact’ Fans Protest New Sumeru Characters’ Skin Color

Games ‘Genshin Impact’ Fans Protest New Sumeru Characters’ Skin Color Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. New! Follow this author to improve your content experience.

Got it! Jun 30, 2022, 08:47am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Genshin Impact Hoyoverse Genshin Impact has stumbled into its latest controversy, one that has consumed most social media chatter about the game ahead of the upcoming release of the new Sumeru region. Genshin Impact, made by Chinese developer Hoyoverse, bases many of its regions around certain real-life nations and cultures. Inazuma, most recently, was very clearly modeled on Japan.

Sumeru, the next region, appears to be based on a mix of Middle Eastern and South Asian culture. And that’s where the disconnect has happened, according to fans. The current situation is that fans are upset that Hoyoverse’s upcoming slate of Sumeru-based characters are not reflective of that Middle Eastern/South Asian origin, given their light skin tone, which matches essentially all the rest of the characters in Genshin Impact so far.

Here’s leaked art for some of the new Sumeru characters: While many will be using the new Dendro element, many fans do not appreciate that Hoyoverse has not taken this opportunity to broaden the skin palate of the game, which has resulted in some fan edits showing what that could look like: MORE FOR YOU ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Finally Has An Actual 2021 Release Date Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Not A Sure Thing, Says Director ‘Genshin Impact’ Still Refuses To Increase Anniversary Rewards, Despite Fan Outcry Others note how white-focused Genshin Impact’s overall skin tone selection is compared to other similar games in the genre, even those out of China itself: The two somewhat dark skin tones in the Genshin half are Xinyan, a Liyue character that has a US southern accent, and Kaeya, one of the starter characters from Mondstadt, but he may be originally from Khaenri’ah, explaining his different appearance. Everyone else? Extremely white, and that includes the new Sumeru characters Kusanali (The Dendro Archon), Tighnari, Dori and Collei whose names appear to have at least some South Asian influence, like the region itself. I’ve asked Hoyoverse about the fan campaign to try and get more skin tones into Genshin Impact and the Sumeru region specifically, but have not heard back yet.

While Inazuma’s Japanese-influenced slate of characters made more sense to stay within the same palette, that just doesn’t seem true of Sumeru, and we’ll see if Hoyoverse has any specific response to this. Otherwise, we have a new v2. 8 Special Program that will be airing on Saturday, July 2 at 8 AM EST, and we’ll perhaps learn/see more then, though this will not be the official Sumeru reveal.

For now, it seems Genshin Impact will remain at two out of 45+ characters with darker skin, which does not seem like it will satisfy many fans. Follow me on Twitter , YouTube , Facebook and Instagram . Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls .

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