Black Protagonists in Video Games

Video games are extremely fun. Over the years, the medium has provided gamers with amazing interactive stories and experiences that stick with them long after they put down the controller. Despite this, video games, like other mediums, have a serious problem with diversity.

According to a study conducted by Diamond Lobby, 9.5% of video games have a white protagonist. However, there are still a number of titles that have protagonists of color. For this article, I want to take a look at just a few games that feature Black protagonists in particular.

Telltale’s The Walking Dead

Telltale is a studio known for their highly acclaimed episodic decision-based games inspired by existing IP’s. One such title is their popular The Walking Dead series, which takes place in the same universe as Robert Kirkman’s comic book of the same name.

In Telltale’s first game in the series, simply titled The Walking Dead, players take control of Lee Everett, an ex-university professor convicted of murder who is given the chance to redeem himself when he decides to protect an orphaned girl named Clementine in the wake of a zombie apocalypse.

It’s a perilous and emotional journey that is sure to tug at the heartstrings of anyone who has the pleasure of experiencing Lee and Clementine’s story.

Watch Dogs 2

After disappointing many fans with the release of Watch Dogs in 2013, Ubisoft came back with a vengeance with Watch Dogs 2. This second entry in the Watch Dogs series was a complete tonal shift from the first game, giving us a different set of characters in the completely new setting of the San Francisco Bay Area.

In Watch Dogs 2, you play as Marcus Holloway, a brilliant young hacker who joins the hacktivist group DedSec after being arrested and charged for a crime he didn’t commit due to the flawed and corrupt mass surveillance system, ctOS 2.0. Over the course of the game’s story, Marcus works with DedSec in order to take down the system that has screwed him and so many other people over.

Watch Dogs 2 is a fun and wacky game with a colorful cast of characters that can only be described as “hipsters.” But the game has a lot of heart, and underneath all that silliness, there are some very important and relatable themes present.

Mafia III

Mafia 3 is kind of a hard pill to swallow as far as video games go. Coming off of the banger that was Mafia 2, fans naturally had high expectations for the third entry in the series. However, what we got was a pretty shallow attempt at an open-world crime game that’s repetitive and, dare I say, boring. However, if there is one place Mafia 3 shines, it’s the story.

Mafia 3 is about Lincoln Clay, a man of mixed race (identifies as Black) who goes on a path of revenge after his surrogate family, the Black Mob, is betrayed and wiped out by the Italian Mafia in 1960s New Bordeux, a fictionalized version of New Orleans, Louisiana, during that time period.

The interesting thing about Mafia 3 is that the game does not shy away from the racial prejudices and inequalities that plagued society at the time. Not only is this reflected in the story and dialogue, but also in the moment-to-moment gameplay. Playing as Lincoln, the world will actually respond to who you are. Cops might harass you, people might fear you, and there are certain establishments where you’re not welcome.

It can be quite striking and might even bother some, but it’s still, to this day, one of the most unique aspects of the game to me, and one of the few games I’ve seen represent those issues in this way. 

DEATHLOOP

Borrowing ideas from Dishonored and Prey, Deathloop is kind of a culmination of everything Arkane Studios has produced thus far. But it’s also pretty good in its own right.

In Deathloop, you step into the shoes of Colt Vahn, an assassin who wakes up on a mysterious island and is trapped in a timeloop that can only be broken once he takes out eight different targets in one day.

In addition to playing as Colt, there is a secondary playable character named Julianna Blake. When playing as Julianna, the goal of the player is to try and stop Colt from succeeding in his goal of breaking the loop by killing him. But regardless of who you’re playing as, Deathloop is an absolutely fun and exhilarating ride.

Disclaimer: These next couple of entries are games I personally have not gotten the chance to play yet, so I naturally have less to say about them. But I still wanted to include them on this list because they seem interesting to me.

SEASON: A Letter to the Future

Season: A Letter to the Future is an adventure game set in a world that is ending due to a mysterious cataclysm. The game’s plot revolves around a young woman named Estelle, who travels the world and documents her experiences and findings for the next generation of people before everything is wiped away.

It seems like a nice, impactful game that I would love to experience for myself one day.

Forspoken

Forspoken takes players to the fantastical land of Athia, where they control Frey, a young woman who is transported there from New York City. Frey gets magical powers and uses her newfound abilities on her journey to find a way back home.

Now, Forspoken, of course, was not well received, but it’s not everyday that we get a AAA-published game with a Black female as the lead. Plus, outside of the demo, I haven’t actually played the game for myself, so I can’t, in good conscience, tell you that it has absolutely no redeeming qualities. As far as I’m concerned, the game seems like it could be a good time, and that’s what’s most important to me personally.