Genshin Impact is a popular live-service action anime role-playing game (RPG) that was released on September 28, 2020. Since the game came out,miHoYo has not become a stranger to allegations of racism. The game releases new characters on a regular basis for players to engage in the gacha system for the chance to add them to their ever-growing roster of playable characters. Since the game’s release, out of 67 characters, only five of them are black.
What further spurred the racism allegations was the release of the newest region, Sumeru, which is based on Middle Eastern/Persian cultures and traditions. The region is divided into two sections: the forest and the desert. The desert is where three out of the five playable characters originate and as such, the majority of dark-skinned people are from Sumeru. However in the city/forest region, all of the characters (nonplayer characters included) are pale-skinned. Furthermore, with the introduction to Sumeru came a new enemy to fight: the desert Eremites who are all dark-skinned.
Following the release of the newest character, Dehya, players have started to notice a trend. Lighter-skinned characters have a better kit that is not as buggy and is accessible to play regardless of how many copies you have of said character. Dehya’s kit has the lowest multipliers for damage of any claymore wielding character except for Xinyan, who also has extremely low damage multipliers. However, in an experiment comparing damage, Xinyan also out performed her basic attacks, making Dehya the weakest unit.
For the lack of dark-skinned characters and them being notoriously weak and buggy, it has happened too many times to be considered a coincidence. There is currently a call on Twitter using the hashtag #FIXDEHYA in hopes that the company will give her a well-deserved buff.
