Cognition Dissemination: About Dark-Skinned People in Final Fantasy XVI

 

I’ve had fun watching and pointing out content in the Final Fantasy XVI trailers released by Square Enix over the last two years. They’ve provided a remarkable number of them for a new Final Fantasy game, all of which have shown chunks of content, given the amount of numbered installments that have entered and emerged from development hell over two decades. The art style looks similar to Final Fantasy XIV and the various versions and expansions released since 2010, thanks to several team members from that title working on it. The game is also clearly taking cues from Game of Thrones, still popular following the airing of House of the Dragon.

One aspect shown in them is more dubious and very noticeable with the newest trailer: This game’s cast is looking extremely white. The “Ambition” trailer showcased a number of characters and brief looks at the regions from which they originate, all of whom are nearly homogenous in how light-skinned they are outside one character of a slightly darker complexion. IGN had the chance to interview producer Naoki Yoshida, and thankfully didn’t pass on a chance to ask him about the lack of diversity.

Yoshida mentioned that FFXVI’s “design concept from the earliest stages of development has always heavily featured medieval Europe, incorporating historical, cultural, political, and anthropological standards that were prevalent at the time.” The team wanted to focus on a single landmass to limit the scope. He continued:

“Due to the underlying geographical, technological, and geopolitical constraints of this setting, Valisthea was never going to realistically be as diverse as say a modern-day Earth…or even Final Fantasy XIV that has an entire planet (and moon) worth of nations, races, and cultures at its disposal. The isolated nature of this realm, however, does end up playing a large part in the story and is one of the reasons Valisthea’s fate is tied to the rest of the world.”

This is a terrible answer. Many sources (here’s just one of them) have pointed out over the years that medieval Europe was more diverse than historical sources and their inspirations previously made people believe. Back and dark-skinned people were far from the majority, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t prevalent, or even influential in certain cases.

Not that being historically accurate matters here. FFXVI will, like many previous FF games, take place in a world where magic, gigantic summons, and fantastical creatures like Chocobos and Tonberrys will wander around. It is, as the name implies, a fantasy. Being accurate to how medieval Europe presumably looked shouldn’t matter in a game not adhering to realism.

I would have preferred it if Yoshida said the team watched and played other fantasy media like GoT (which notably had a few in the background before being made more prominent on HotD), The Lord of the Rings (something the Rings of Power team remarkably addressed to predictable backlash), and fantasy games like the Dragon Age titles. Yoshida’s answer, instead, reads nefariously, like the team deliberately excluded dark-skinned people because they didn’t look right in a world based on history, with elves and dwarves being the main stand-ins. Chances are he didn’t intend for his answer to come off this way, but that’s how it sounds. It would have even been better if he said the team simply didn’t consider that.

This entire situation reminds me of when The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was criticized for the same reason following its release seven-and-a-half years ago. The defenses there, which involved casual(ly racist) fans and developers, involved saying it wouldn’t be historically accurate to a medieval European setting, a trash one for the same reasons it doesn’t apply to FFXVI. Several people have not learned a thing since then; several people do not want to learn anything.

It’s beyond disappointing to see this kind of answer from Yoshida, who’s garnered a good reputation for treating his development teams and the FFXIV community well. He guided a team into partially carrying the Final Fantasy brand on its back for several years with the MMORPG’s reception following A Realm Reborn’s release. I also have to wonder how this affair happened at all, when there’s no way Yoshida doesn’t have PR handlers when doing interviews for what will be one of the biggest games to release next year. The ball was dropped all around.

This situation is drumming up predictable reactions from the Internet’s Worst People, who claim that it’s “woke” and “political” to merely ask why the game’s cast is blindingly bright. They don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to historical accuracy, but this doesn’t phase them when they’ve seen white as the default in fantasy media over the years. Perhaps developers creating media in medieval fantasy environments will come to understand just how diverse it was without resorting to tokenism, but there’s a similarly high chance they’ll take the cowardly way out and believe that the Internet’s Worst People are a sufficient-enough audience that this criticism can go ignored.