‘Genshin Impact’ fans are up in arms about depiction of new characters of color

Genshin Impact’s new playable character has gotten some fans angry because of the color of her skin. 

The new character is named Candace and she is a new Hydro character set to be released within Genshin Impact’s new update, version 3.1. Candace is from the Sumeru region of the game, which is the newest region in the game. You could assume that the name of the new region derives from the ancient region of Sumer or Sumeria which is modern Western Asia, including Iraq and other parts of the Middle East as well. 

The critiques are coming from fans on Twitter who think Candace and the other characters from the Sumeru region have been whitewashed and that they should have darker skin. One fan wrote, “kandake, latinized version candace, is the title given to dark skinned black women… hoyoverse is grossly wrong for taking this name… and whitewashing the character so terribly.”

The fan notes that Candace is the Latinized version of the name Kandake, a name given to women of dark skin throughout history, and indeed the name’s etymology stems from the term Kandake, which was given to queens during the Meroitic period. It was the name for the queens of the Kingdom of Kush, which now consists of Egypt and Sudan.

One fan even altered her coloring to make her have darker skin, which is more accurate to the history that Candace seems to be based on.

Another Genshin Impact fan created a deep dive thread that analyzes how Hoyoverse – the Chinese developer behind Genshin Impact – may have taken inspiration from the history of Kandake as further proof that the whitewashing of the character may have been intentional. Their main point was that Hoyoverse based Candace on one specific figure in history, Queen Amanirenas, who lived from 40 BC to 10 BC and was blind in one eye. The Twitter user comments on this with “Kandrake’s heterochromia appears to be a reference to this.”

Heterochromia is a condition that results in a person having two different-colored eyes, which Candace does have. Again, you cannot be sure that Hoyoverse was intentionally referencing the historical figure, but it certainly does not weigh in their favor.  

Now it should be noted that all of the characters in Genshin Impact are fictional, but it does seem exclusionary to have a majority light-skinned roster of playable characters. However, if you are going to critique them for their historical accuracy based on what they may have based their characters on, it should be important to take all the information into account, including where they may have gotten the name for the characters, and what historical region Sumeru might be based on.

Hoyoverse has not addressed fans’ complaints about the character, or the supposed whitewashing of Sumeru. Whether or not they will is most likely up to the massive fan base that Genshin Impact has, and how many of those fans share their complaints. Hopefully, the game will possess a more diverse lineup in the future.