5 Games to Play that Feature Black Excellence
Written by: Brittney Morris
National Video Games Day is a day to celebrate an immersive art medium that allows us to live as our favorite characters. But what happens when our favorite characters look nothing like us? By the numbers, racial diversity in gaming isn’t hard to come by. That is, if you count NPCs — morally gray but good-hearted technicians, rule-bending shop owners with questionable suppliers, all-brawn-little-brain six-foot ruffians, gangsters, murderers, sage elders, snarky comic-relief sidekicks and partners in crime who are right there to remind you that all you had to do was follow the damn train, CJ. But there’s one role in video games that remains overwhelmingly white through the years — the role of the protagonist. What is it about putting players in the shoes of a character of color that has so many huge gaming companies looking on reluctantly while the indie scene mixes things up in the melanin department? Who knows.
The good news is, you can find meaningful representation in video games if you know where to look. My book, SLAY, out Sept. 24th from Simon Pulse, stars a Black teen game developer as she battles a racist troll using duel cards based on Black culture and Black history. And if this premise has you wanting playable black characters, check out these 5 games that showcase Blackness in all its excellence, just in time for National Video Games day:
