We Should've Been Openly Criticizing Genshin Impact's Whitewashing Since Launch

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The community has united to criticize the game and developer HoYoverse for its continued lack of representation, following the reveal of the roster of upcoming Natlan characters, but the game should have been constantly and openly criticized since its launch back in 2020. After the reveal of the characters, most of which are white, players, fans, and even voice actors expressed their disappointment with the new units, mainly due to the fact that Natlan is based on South American and Western African countries and their respective cultures, and that the Natlan characters in don’t reflect that.

The community calls on the developer to make changes to the character design to more appropriately represent these cultures via the skin tone of the characters that embody them. The character Ororon, for instance, is based on the prime Yoruba deity, often represented as a black man – in the game, however, they are a white-skinned character with dark blue anime hair. Kinich, whose name comes from a Mayan sun god, is also a white character. These designs led to accusations that HoYoverse is whitewashing its characters in, but the current outrage would have been valid at launch.

Genshin Impact and the developer HoYoverse are being heavily criticized by the community following the reveal of the upcoming characters from Natlan.

For context, the developer has been criticized before for the exact same reason. When Sumeru, a nation inspired by Sub-Saharan African, Middle Eastern, Southern and Southeastern Asian countries, was released, the region boasted a heavy absence of people of color.

This was met by a severe backlash, with HoYoverse accused of appropriating itself of these countries' cultural elements within music, architecture, naming, and more, without representing the types of people that live therein. Out of the 13 Sumeru characters in , only four of them have darker skin, and three of them have been accused of being whitewashed.

For reference, the Sumeru characters with