By: Skylar Teddington
The popular game “Genshin Impact” released its newest region, Natlan, on Aug. 28, which is influenced by parts of Africa, Polynesia, and South America. It’s received mixed reviews from players, with some deeming this new update as racist and alleging cultural appropriation.
Normally, a new update is something for players to get excited about as it means more content. However, many players have expressed their dissatisfaction to the point of boycotting the new region, saying it doesn’t accurately represent the people they’re portraying. Out of the 9 playable characters that have been revealed so far, only one of them has dark skin.
I spoke with a black “Genshin Impact” player about this matter. She spoke of her frustration with the game and the company behind it, Hoyoverse.
“In as few words as possible, I am disappointed. However, it was inevitable with the portrayal and usage of Latin and African culture by Hoyoverse to be abysmal,” said the player, who wishes to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation.
This isn’t the first time the game has come under fire. The player also slammed Sumeru, another region that received backlash in the past due to the same issue of there being very few characters of color despite the region drawing inspiration from North Africa and India.
With the controversy came memes, the most notable one being centered around an unnamed NPC, who is white with a common black hair style– braids. People have compared this character to Mei from the game “Overwatch”, specifically referencing her “MM-Mei” skin, also known as “Meiquisha”, which features the character in cornrows.
I talked with Frankie, an “Overwatch” player with over 500 confirmed hours in the game. He told me about his thoughts on cultural appropriation and non-black people wearing traditionally black hair styles.
“[…] just plain stupid. Not only is it not meant for you to wear as white people, but [it] can be extremely damaging to white hair, don’t do it if you wanna keep your hairline and keep your scalp in good shape,” said Frankie, who wished to omit his last name for privacy purposes.
He added that he’d been there for the release of Mei’s “MM-Mei” skin back in 2021, calling it a “stupid decision” by Blizzard, the company behind “Overwatch”.
Fans of both games took to many different social media platforms, including X, formerly known as Twitter. They called the inclusion of the NPC “Meiquisha’s” return.
In addition to that, people have been referencing the “White Egyptian” meme and recording themselves playing the game to find this NPC, among other things.
The topic of cultural appropriation has been a point of contention among fans of Genshin Impact, with some saying that Natlan’s lack of darker-skinned characters isn’t a problem and others arguing that it’s wrong to exclude the group of people that the region is inspired by.
Fans continue to call for change from the company, creating digitally altered images of Natlan’s cast with darker skin tones.
Hoyoverse has yet to directly comment on this matter and was accused of hiding negative comments on their X posts earlier this summer.