Final Fantasy 14has gotten much more popular in the past couple of years and has fans waiting in great anticipation for itsEndwalkerexpansion. During the 2021Final Fantasy 14Fan Festival, a lot of new content was announced and Naoki Yoshida answered many questions fans had about thefuture ofFinal Fantasy 14. Among what he addressed included the fan concern about skin color changes in characters, who were fan-favorite members of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, Y’shtola and Thancred.
Yoshida explained why this skin color change happened, and it mostly came down to the colorism being totally unintentional as they changed character costumes between expansions.Final Fantasy 14is far from the first game to have these colorism issues, but Yoshida’s response is a refreshing start to making a dialogue happen between fans and game creators about this delicate subject.
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Final Fantasy 14’s History Of Colorism
Final Fantasy 14’salleged historyofcolorism has been the subject of player criticism. The main cast consists of mostly white characters and the darker-skinned characters got a little bit lighter with time. While it was Y’shotla and Thancred’s skin color changes that Yoshida addressed, many fans actually had a bigger issue with Lyse’s role inStormbloodas a white savior to her nation of colored people. Reddit forums have asked, “Why is Lyse the only white person from Ala Mhigo,” and, “Shouldn’t Lyse be darker?”
For many, it was in poor taste to have a blonde white woman lead the charge in a story about fighting back against colonialism. AfterStormblood, many fans have said that they started to find Lyse annoying and sometimes this fact about her odd relationship to Ala Mhigo was listed as one of the reasons why. Most of the minor charactersin Ala Mhigoare people of color, and it may have been better to get a character like Raubahn more involved as a leader in the rebellion than Lyse. In the end, though, Lyse andStormbloodwere not what Yoshida drew attention to at the 2021 Fan Fest.
Yoshida’s Response About Y’shtola’s Skin Color
In a Fanbyte interview that touched onFinal Fantasy 14and colorism, Yoshida explained that back inpatch 1.0, Y’shtola’s skin was lighter, then was darkened inHeavensward, as that was the time that Square Enix decided to give the Scions a costume change. At the time, the team decided to make Thancred and Y’shtola “sun-kissed” because Coerthas mostly takes place outside, but it also takes place in the snow. Essentially, the change was made in part so there would be a contrast between the characters and the setting.
Thancred and Y’shtolathen paler inShadowbringersbecause their bodies were seeing less light due to their coma. Square Enix wanted to give that little detail to show that the characters can change throughout the story based on what happens to them. So, Yoshida explained this and hoped that players would focus less on this unintentional colorism and more on having fun in the game. Yoshida added that theFinal Fantasy 14development team wants to be as considerate as possible and take the concerns of its fans seriously. “If there were any sort of misunderstandings, we do want to be mindful of that moving forward,” he said.
Yoshida’s response was incredibly careful and made all efforts to respect theFinal Fantasy 14players. While fans have discussed the matter of colorism inFinal Fantasy 14plenty before the Fan Fest, Yoshida’s response has inspired mostly silence. This can be due to way more exciting things happening in the Fan Fest such as the announcement ofEndwalker, itsnew Reaper class, and male Viera.
Final Fantasy 14is available now on PC, PS3, PS4, and PS5.
