Final Fantasy 14 Graphics Update Aims To Improve Darker Skin Tones

thegamer.com:

Final Fantasy 14's upcoming graphical update will make sweeping changes to character renders, with a particular focus on darker skin tones. This addresses complaints that the game struggled to render characters with dark skin, often making it hard to make out their facial features, particularly in low lighting.

This reveal came as part of the keynote speech at Final Fantasy Fan Fest Tokyo, with Final Fantasy 14's Yoshi-P personally showing off the graphical improvements. Here, he admits that the current renders aren't doing Black characters justice, with the update adding new shaders that can still bring out the details in the darkest skin tones.

Throughout the segment on how the graphical improvements will affect all of Final Fantasy 14's playable races, Yoshi-P shows off a lot of characters with dark skin. Here, the facial features of all characters are much more visible, and the new shaders certainly appear to accommodate more skin tones.

"Historically, 14 has been pretty bad in terms of displaying this type of dark skin," says Yoshi-P, speaking through a translator. "You enter a shadowy area and it all looks bad and falls apart. But with our new shaders that will not be an issue.

It remains to be seen if they hold up in different types of lighting, but at the very least, it shows that the team is aware of the complaints.

Not only is this an improvement in terms of visuals, but it might also signal a better approach to incorporating people of colour in the world of Final Fantasy as a whole. Yoshi-P himself has previously come under fire for comments he made during the development of Final Fantasy 16, saying that he didn't want to "over incorporate" diversity in the game. He said it was because it didn't fit the