It’s easy to see where Yoshida’s sentiments in his
IGN interview fall apart. I could trot out the standard response that gets used whenever a work of fantasy fails to include people of color in the name of “historical accuracy,” aka “blah blah blah, it doesn’t make sense that chocobos, Eikons, and magic are permitted but people of color is a step too far.”
I could also crack open the history books to point out that medieval Europe was never all white all the time (the Moorish kingdom of Spain sends its regards). But beyond the general fallacy of “no people of color in medieval Europe,” Yoshida’s quote doesn’t even make sense within the context of one of
Final Fantasy XVI’s other stated goals — to have broad appeal.
As someone who’s been Black and a
Final Fantasy fan all her life, I, too, had a problem with Yoshida’s answer.
Final Fantasy has never been perfect with regard to its diversity, but the more recent games had been getting better. This idea of
Final Fantasy XVI being “rooted in reality” is likely going to end up hurting the developers’ other, arguably more important goal for
FFXVI, which is for the game to reach as big an audience as possible.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Yoshida and the senior development team behind
FFXVI, and I asked if, since that interview with
IGN, Yoshida had the opportunity to hear feedback and if he had anything to say to the fans of color who may be turning their back on the game.
“I believe that with Final Fantasy XVI, we weave together a variety of peoples and cultures set in this kind of sweeping fantasy narrative and world, and one that we strived to create with care and respect,” Yosida answered through translator Michael-Christopher Koji-Fox. “We hope that when players finally are able to take up the game in their own hands, that they will be able to see what we’ve aimed for and will hopefully ultimately be able to connect with that unique experience.”
So… judging from this answer, not really.
In my interview with Yoshida, he spoke about the concern that
Final Fantasy wasn’t bringing in fans like it used to. “We’ve seen that our fans are distancing themselves from the series,” he said. “There are not as many people playing the series as the series has gone on. Those numbers are going down. There is a fear of the series becoming more niche.”
The developers believe that a full-action game, one with darker, more mature themes
that resembles the more recent God of War games, is what will bring people back to the fold.
But while Ragnarok is a game firmly rooted in the customs and culture of Norse mythology, it still takes the time and care and effort to include characters of color like Angrboda. That game was successful in part because its developers did not let a notion of “reality” constrain what they could do with their characters and world-building. It’s a lesson a lot of new games are taking to heart, symbolizing much-needed progress within the industry.
Yoshida talked about how “over-inclusion” of people of color would “violate narrative boundaries” and, in his answer to my follow-up, brought up the different peoples and cultures the development team included in
FFXVI. In introducing the game, he gave an overview of the different kingdoms and factions vying for control of the all-powerful mothercrystals.
One such kingdom, The Dhalmekian Republic, has an aesthetic and architectural style that doesn’t fit with the flying buttresses and gothic cathedrals of the rest. It’s an arid desert nation, and screenshots of the land feature domed structures that kinda look like mosques one might find in North Africa or the Middle East. A description of Dhalmekia shared during the
Final Fantasy XVI press event called it a desert kingdom that thrives via trade, bringing to mind the west African kingdom of Mali and the great caravan of
Mansa Musa. If we want to step away from real-world analogies, the republic’s name itself, Dhalmekia, is very reminiscent of the kingdom of
Dalmasca from Final Fantasy XII, whose capital city
Rabanastre was extremely overt in its references to Middle Eastern culture, architecture, and people.
Given all that, it rings a bit hollow to say it would strain narrative credulity to include people of color in your game that’s based on European history, politics, whatever, then include a place in that game that not only references real-life places that were not all white but also references a place that even with your series’ own canon was also not all white.
So if the goal for
Final Fantasy XVI is to have broad appeal, wouldn’t it make sense then to make a game that appeals to the breadth of the people you want spending money on your game, including people of color?
Diversity works. That’s true of video games and movies at large and even within
Final Fantasy itself.
Final Fantasy XII, one of the games that feels most in line with
FFXVI, included characters of color.
Critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV,
the Final Fantasy Yoshida himself came from, has a wonderfully diverse player base and includes cultures from around the world in its many settings while having diverse NPCs throughout. Two of the best
Final Fantasy characters from the last decade or so of the series
are Black men.
Ultimately, the
Final Fantasy XVI development team wants to tell the story they want to tell in the world they want to tell it in. It just sucks that they feel the best way to do that was through an all-white cast in a world that isn’t even consistent with that homogeneous vision.
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