Invisibility Blues Episode 1.1
When Race is on the Menu: Choice, Change, and Character Creation

This is the first in a series of Kickstarter-funded videos that will primarily look at race and racial representation in video games. This episode, When Race is on the Menu: Choice, Change, and Character Creation, will look specifically at human character creation in a series of contemporary games that span developers and genres. We look at products from different developers using different engines so that we can see a broader range of possibilities and limitations and have more material for critique. We look at games across genre because while software and hardware limitations are a huge factor, we also want to consider how much import is placed on character aesthetics when the amount of time that a character’s face will be seen on screen varies and discuss whether or not this is an issue when we are thinking about characterization and a player’s immersion in both the narrative and the character herself.
While this may be an issue that is simple for some to dismiss as being either unimportant or marginally important, for those of us who are not the same as the default for characters in the games that we have been playing since our childhoods, this issue is of the greatest import. What is the point of carrying a character over three iterations of a game and five years of gameplay (as in the case of the Mass Effect series) if the connection is simply not there? For me personally while I could not make a character that looked exactly like me (I guess there are no plus-sized starship captains) I was able to make a character that I could at least relate to.
Aside from the obvious need for individuals to be able to make characters that at least resemble themselves in some small way, it is also important that players of all races, creeds, and colors be able to fashion characters that are diverse so that they can best reflect the world the characters inhabit, unlike in such examples as Carnival Games for the Wii, which featured a Black man as an NPC, but had no non-white character options for players. Players could choose pink, purple, or blue hair, but not brown skin. Not even mildly tan, just one standard shade of pale. And also if options for characters of multiple in-game races exist, those choices need to be consistent across skin tones; if the game is seeking a realistic representation, then those choices, too, need to be realistic, or at least as realistic as possible within design limitations. Otherwise why have options at all?
And while we acknowledge that no game character will be a 1:1 representation of the player, and that there are other invaluable points of connection within a narrative -- decisions made, actions taken, outfits chosen (when possible), there is a basic level of connection that springs from the ability to choose the features that build a character’s physical appearance.
“[E]ven websites that focus on ethnic and racial identity and community often posses interface design features that force reductive, often archaic means of defining race upon the user. This produces a new kind of cybertyping, one that encompasses the user’s racial identity within the paradigm of the “clickable box”--one box among many on the menu of identity choices. When users are given no choice other than to select the “race” or “ethnicity” to which they belong, and are given no means to define or modify the terms or categories available to them, then identities that do not appear on the menu are essentially foreclosed on and erased. This limits the ways that race can happen in cyberspace and also denies the possibility of a mestiza consciousness on these sites" (Lisa Nakamura, Cybertypes, 101-102).
While these choices may not result in a photorealistic representation of the player herself, the choices (and the act of making said choices) can add to the level of agency that the she feels in the game.
We’re going to start this video by looking at the creation of human characters in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the Elder Scrolls Online, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. We start specifically with these games because they have epic narratives that can span hundreds of hours of gameplay and have hundreds of pages of text in-game. In order to complete these kinds of games it is necessary for the player to have a heightened level of investment in the game and (for some) this level of investment can only be reached when they feel a certain amount of connection to the character that they are playing.
The Elder Scroll series includes 4 major races (outside the Kothringi and Nedic peoples) that are categorized as human: Breton, Imperial, Nord, and Redguard, and these 4 races seem to be based upon races (or combinations of races) of people that exist in the real world, connections that can be drawn from naming conventions, lore, accent, and more.
The Breton boast magic and a bit of Elven ancestry and their lore seems grounded mainly in that chivalrous history often used in fantasy, with connections to the Celts of Brittany. Their ties to magic may be grounded in Celtic mysticism.
The Imperial, who have names that fit Roman conventions, also have armor that bears a striking resemblance to Roman armor. They seem to be the most aptly trained military race in the Elder Scrolls universe, which also suits the connection.
The Nord of the North hail from the frozen continent of Atmora and are best known as a fighting class (used primarily as soldiers and mercenaries). Racially they have a more natural resistance to cold and ice based magic and as the pale skinned and blonde haired race with more Scandinavian-styled environs and ships they are most easily likened to the Vikings.
The Redguard seem to be based on humans from Africa (which includes coding via names and culture from Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa) not only based on their actual visage, but also on their racial attributes and the language that is used to describe them. The Redguard are consistently described as the “most naturally talented warriors” in Tamriel, an echo of language often used to describe Black athletes. The Redguard are also considered one of the more “hardy” races that have more stamina than others and are resistant to poison.
This language is reminiscent of the same rhetoric that we have seen used to describe Black bodies since antebellum times. For us it brings to mind the infamous comments that got the CBS sports commentator, Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder fired in 1988. Snyder attributed the “natural” athleticism of Black athletes to their “breeding” during slavery.
"The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way, because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs and he's bred to be the better athlete because this goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trade...the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid." -Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder
It’s unfortunate that 30 years after the firing of Jimmy the Greek for his outrageous comments that this kind of racist rhetoric is still being used to build lore in games.
While we’ll have a great deal more to say about these racial divisions in our later look at fantasy games, it’s important to establish these divisions before we talk about character selection options, because the established lore sets up racial divides in ways that impact character creation.
For instance, issues with Redguard lore don’t stop at the “natural warriors” labeling; lore also holds that they do not share any blood with the other human races. While this has a long explanation in game text and meta text, the practical result is that in some games, like ESO, several other races simply cannot be dark-skinned. If you want to play a character that appears black, you must play as Redguard… or Dark Elf, Orc, Khajit, or Argonian. In Skyrim, however, Imperials and Bretons can go darker, though Nords just end up looking ruddy or dirty. Since the Redguard are geared toward warrior classes, this is limiting for players who want to be, say, both dark-skinned humans AND mages.
While xenophobia and tension are hallmarks of race relations in Elder Scrolls games, and deeply embedded in the lore itself, with plotlines and quests frequently addressing racial tension, those conflicts seem to be based on culture differences rather than on skin color. Perhaps these narrative and aesthetic differences can be chalked up to different development teams working on the games, and perhaps it’s something else.
Now, to switch gears: Dragon Age Inquisition features a much more robust take on character creation than either Elder Scrolls game, with many more customizable options for players to tweak, including options like lip shine, Adam’s apple prominence, and makeup for both male and female characters. Any of the races -- humans, elves, dwarves, and Qunari -- can be dark-skinned, light-skinned, or any shade between, though this has not always been the case in Dragon Age Games, as here, in Origins. Here, players could not only not choose darker skin tones, but those few “dark” shades available just look dirty or muddy, much as with the Nords in ESO. And even if you did make a darker-skinned character? Your in-game family was still pale. Prior to Inquisition, this lack of availability of darker hued skin was attributed to the specific regional homelands of the characters within the games; for instance, ONLY the people of Rivain were darker-skinned, and in Origins, the focus was on people from Ferelden.
On the Dragon Age wiki, skin tone and complexion are only mentioned on the page for Rivain, where the people are listed as darker skinned, ranging from tan to ebony skin tones. For instance we have, Vivienne, who was born in Rivain (but who lives in Orlais). No other nation’s pages include any mention of skin tone.
We’ll talk more at length about these races in later videos, but since we are looking only at humans for this installment, let’s focus on those options in Inquisition.
The preset faces demonstrate some of the ranges in Inquisition’s character creation. Players can really make a character their own. The game allows a great level of diversity in feature selection, so players can adjust the shape of their eyes, noses, and more. These features are not always available when creating characters, but when they are they allow not only the creation of avatars grounded in particular racial identities, but also the blending of characteristics for a more multiracial appearance. Inquisition also offers something several other games do not: an option for eyes with something approaching epicanthic folds. While many games offer an “almond-shaped” eye, particularly if Elves are an available race, these selections are usually only a feature of eye shape and tilt, rather than reflecting a characteristic common in many parts of (this) world.
Unlike the Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age games do not break humans up into different categories and bloodlines in character creation, though in game lore, there are delineations between tribes and kingdoms. There’s no choosing different races of human here; human is just human. Per the series’ lore, this may be due to humans originating in a single tribe and then spreading out from there, but this is an unconfirmed link between lore and character creation. Certainly game-time origin and narrative play a part in character creation, per Gaider’s remarks, though now that we’ve seen more regional crossover, perhaps that won’t be an issue in future games, and the wider array of features and skin tones will be more consistently available.  
This diversity stops short with hair options, however, a problem we see in many games -- not just here, but in the Elder Scrolls games and most others with character creation options. Hair, already laden with cultural considerations, especially in Black culture, tends to be limited at best in character creation, and problematic at its worst. Here in Inquisition, hair is straight and short, with only braided and bun styles hinting at possible length. There is no curly hair, not even short curly hair, and we don’t even see the dreadlocks or thicker braids common in some other games as options for characters of color. If a player wants to select hair that looks like natural Black hair, they are limited to very short styles. Yes, hair can be very difficult to create in games, and that difficulty often leads to hair looking like one of the more unnatural characteristics. We can all accept that there will be some unnatural quality to our game avatars. What we cannot, and should not accept, are white characters that are colored a little darker -- which is what we often end up getting when there are no realistic options for Black head hair and facial hair.
Skyrim has a few more options than Inquisition, with some greater variety in terms of length, styling, and even texture, as we can see here with variations for both male and female characters, but with ESO, the options are again limited to largely Caucasian hair types, especially for male characters. Female characters have more options in terms of braids and similar styles, including longer hair than we see in the other games, even some curly styles, but the curls are definitely loose and wavy; anyone looking to make a Black woman with more coarse or curly natural hair will again be relegated to the same sorts of styles we see over and over again, just with more variation.
“A man is only as great as the beard that wears him" may be an old Redguard proverb, but that doesn’t mean beards in these games are themselves great. The facial hair options in Skyrim and Inquisition are even worse than the other hair options, particularly in the latter, with hair that is coded in a very specific way that excludes many non-white looks.
But beards are especially troubling, with few or no realistic options for Black males. In each of these games we’ve looked at so far, the only options for men with curly facial hair are nearer to stubble and close-cropped looks. The beards themselves are limited to Caucasian hair.
Sure, we might suppose that maybe in these fantasy worlds, beards are magically smooth and glistening for men of all types… but that seems like a bit of a stretch, a wild guess with no basis in any of these games.
We had the privilege of speaking with Shareef Jackson of #GamingLooksGood, whom we’ll interview more fully for a later episode, about Black hair in games. Jackson told us that he didn’t start looking to add facial hair to his characters until he was in his mid-twenties. He wanted characters that looked like him, so when he grew facial hair, he tried to add it for them, too. But what he noticed was that there just weren’t many options. Here, with his Mii from 2006, he had a choice between, quote, small goatee and huge Santa beard. He sent along this style sheet from a barbershop to demonstrate some of the range of real Black hairstyles, and added “at least SOME of these styles should be in a character creator.”
Jackson said he’s added more facial hair to his characters as his own has grown, and the games with the closest options tend to be sports games, like the recent NBA 2k16. Jackson speculated that maybe this is because the athletes are mostly men of color, but that doesn’t mean similar options shouldn’t be available in other character creators.
The limits we’ve seen here in options like hair, noses, eyes, and skin shade have an impact beyond simply disallowing full realism or options. No player expects character creation systems to include every possible offering -- at least, not yet. But as Adrienne Shaw tells us, after interviewing players for her research in Gaming at the Edge, one approach some players take to character building is the creation of idealized versions of themselves. If the most frequent options available are coded as Caucasian, what’s the impact on players who are not? Are games inadvertently telling players that there’s nothing ideal about certain hair textures? Certain shades of skin? Games may not be able to create these attitudes, but they can reinforce them.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s multiplayer character creation takes a different approach: instead of building characters from the ground up, players select from pre-configured characters and then customize certain options, like clothing and gear, to tailor the character to their play style. This may sound like a barrier for player creativity when compared to games with full customization, but Call of Duty manages to present a wide array of options in terms of available characters with realistic features and hair in the base game. And there are even more options available to be unlocked.
The slate of characters are racially diverse, both in male and female options (though there are fewer base female options); characters range widely in skin tone and facial features, though of course there’s no match for every possible racial or ethnic approach here. For example, in the base options, there’s no female character who can be identified as being of South Asian descent. But as Shaw implies, this may not always be essential. Gamers are used to adopting personas and inhabiting characters who are physically different from them. Shaw’s interviews reveal that players will find points of identification in persona and attitude, even if it must be constructed from player imagination. Media, in the general sense, has long been faulted for failing to represent multiple ethnicities, and for relying on tokenism and stereotypes, and gaming has been no different. Ultimately gamers have had to learn to navigate fraught, challenging spaces. Our purpose here is to bring those issues to light and demonstrate avenues for change.
Call of Duty’s slate of characters does offer gamers many choices, even without facial customization, and the addition of women to multiplayer, finally, with Ghosts only improved that approach, particularly since the women are of comparable size and build to the men. While this was probably a function of game play and maintaining hitboxes, so as not to give those who choose female avatars an advantage, a side effect of that is a more inclusive slate of characters at the selection point, perhaps even more inclusive than some of the other examples we’ve mentioned, due to their issues.
Call of Duty as a first person shooter, particularly in its multiplayer form, lacks any real narrative structure, especially when compared to the RPGs that we have looked at, and players may be less likely to form an attachment to their avatars in the same way in this genre of game. However, it’s worth considering and comparing these different approaches to character creation, if only to see the way that certain characteristics like facial features, hair, and facial hair are presented in the different styles of game. 
 In part two of our exploration of character creation we will look at additional games that allow players to build characters, consider the implications of some limited choices and the potential reasons for those limitations. These are important considerations because as games critics, scholars, and consumers we can’t simply stop at cataloguing which features are available, or not. We must also consider the potential impact that the inclusion or exclusion of these features has both on players and the broader video game industry. Our movement into a world of games and gaming beyond token characters, and token features, may bring with it a world of potential. Join us next time for these discussions, and for more Invisibility Blues.