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Quantic Dream changed the skin tone of Saudi characters in Beyond PS4 to..

Phamit

Member
Looks like a Saudi now in my opponent in my opinion, atleast I never met people from the middle East with a skin as dark as the previous Version
 
Something like this doesn't happen by accident. And that most certainly isn't the same model. They swapped the heads completely for multiple characters. Beards don't magically appear out of thin air.

Ah odd as this story is, you don't know that. I'm pretty sure it's possible that a model can be replaced by another by accident. It sometimes happens in other games as glitches (this one could be a development error, and although I doubt it, i don't know it's not.
 

Raist

Banned
Actually a lot of things look lighter / less saturated on PS4.

Not saying that's the only reason though of course, the difference for these characters is more pronounced.
 
Again, there is a horribly racist and inaccurate depiction of Native Americans, so for the purpose of accuracy shouldn't be a real argument.
 

Ran rp

Member
I was confused about this change, but this post explained everything.

14230166.jpg
 

dakun

Member
Again, there is a horribly racist and inaccurate depiction of Native Americans, so for the purpose of accuracy shouldn't be a real argument.

yeah.. no. You can repeat it again if you want. It's not going to make the racist claim any more true.
 

Mivey

Member
The change is simply there to offend a certain type of PC focused player, and therefore give them more emotions. All emotions are good, regardless of whether they are enjoyable or not.
Disgust, outrage, it doesn't really matter. The more emotion this game conveys, the better it is.
 
What does that have to do with anything? How about not insulting your fellow forum members?

I don't intend to 'insult' anyone. But yeah, especially considering the DOAX3 bullshit that just happened, I absolutely believe that saying 'political correctness ruins everything' in relation to games puts you in the GG camp.

Whether you think that's an insult is up to you.
 
Not that there aren't Saudis who are fairer skinned, but why make this kind of change? Are they worried about backlash from the current political environment or the fact when people think of "terrorists" they think of darker-skinned people? That's a very weak sauce reason to make the change, essentially comes back to reaffirm those ill-conceived notions.

Reminds me a little of what Capcom did for RE5 after people started complaining about that but making at least half the cast of residents white. And it certainly wasn't set in South Africa (even then, it'd be incorrect in relation to actual population make-up).

Looks like a Saudi now in my opponent in my opinion, atleast I never met people from the middle East with a skin as dark as the previous Version
Lol yet despite this there's overwhelming evidence of pretty dark-skinned Middle Easterners in various ME countries. Why even bring up an anecdotal in this kind of scenario?

Please someone tell European and American media that in Arabian countries aristocratic or at least higher class people mostly have pale skin and those working on the streets, or lower class mostly have tanned skin colour. And that's why tanned black guys in some upper class bodyguard company would look a little bit odd. And that's why probably they got changed to some more appropriate and realistic ones.
The likelihood this was a key factor in the change is almost nil. We are talking about a game with a character who can possess other people's bodies and flying spirits.

Why the hell would they care about staying strict to realism in one specific, non-essential case? It's like saying a modern revision of Dungeons and Dragons set in New York City is pretty believable but having a black or Latino person in the cast is unrealistic given the aesthetic.

Neverminding it's set in frickin' New York City in 2015
 
I played the original version on PS3, the whole time wishing there were more white characters in it. Dreams really can come true.
 

Sblargh

Banned
This is the weird thread of the day. I'm not even outraged, I'm just curious. Who the hell makes that kind of decision?
 

L Thammy

Member
If you try to avoid offending other ethnicities by trying to whitewash them or pretending they don't exist, you probably aren't actually concerned about them.
(At the people who think this is "political correctness" or something like that.)
 

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
I highly doubt it. Mostly only USA and some people in UK are SOOOOO obsessed with racism. In other parts of the world people don't give a fuck. "Oh, you are black? That's interesting and unusual but that's ok". But the customs in different countries are totally different. If someone changes skin color to better reflect reality that doesn't mean it's racism or something.

Translation: "I don't see color."
A popular sentiment among racists.
 
...Well that's not good for them. They're definitely completely different.

Are we sure these aren't just 2 examples of many other similar changes? Or is it really just the Saudis/dark skinned people that were changed?
 
OMG, they changed the lighting to make this Saudi dude appear darker on PS4!

PS3:

LziRB6Z.png



PS4:

OcwpcVc.png



They changed all the dresses too, made them darker in colour!


PS3:

NPHXH9j.png


PS4:

Md9n0Oi.png



Is Eurogamer actually serious with this lmao!? The entire scene received a make-over, that's all. Other chapters like the scene in Somalia, which didn't receive a make-over, are still identical to PS3 with identical looking black characters. To assume ill on their part is mind boggling to say the least lol
 

zoozilla

Member
I wonder if the change was to prevent "negative representation of Muslims" or something like that?

I bet with all the anti-Muslim sentiment out there, developers are more sensitive to how Muslim characters are depicted in their games.

This would be a weird and ineffectual way to address that (I mean, they're still Muslims), but who knows what Da Cage is thinking.
 

Spacejaws

Member
It's an interesting theory, but how did they miss this in the first release and why suddenly correct it out of the blue?

It could be they had some correspondence about it from fans or elsewhere that brought it to mind after the PS3 release and on the re-release someone thought it would be a good idea to correct it?

Only Da Cage knows for sure.
 
OMG, they changed the lighting to make this Saudi dude darker on PS4!

PS3:

LziRB6Z.png



PS4:

OcwpcVc.png



They changed all the dresses too, made them darker in colour!


PS3:

NPHXH9j.png


PS4:

Md9n0Oi.png



Is Eurogamer actually serious with this lmao!? The entire scene received a make-over, that's all. Other chapters like the scene in Somalia, which didn't receive a make-over, are still identical to PS3 with really black looking characters. To assume ill on their part is mind boggling to say the least lol
That's the exact opposite of what's in the op. Lol.
 
beyond two tones
Holy shit. Controversy/10!

Seriously tho, this was a good chuckle.

OMG, they changed the lighting to make this Saudi dude darker on PS4!

PS3:

LziRB6Z.png



PS4:

OcwpcVc.png



They changed all the dresses too, made them darker in colour!


PS3:

NPHXH9j.png


PS4:

Md9n0Oi.png



Is Eurogamer actually serious with this lmao!? The entire scene received a make-over, that's all. Other chapters like the scene in Somalia, which didn't receive a make-over, are still identical to PS3 with really black looking characters. To assume ill on their part is mind boggling to say the least lol
Learn the difference between hue, saturation and value before you try to make a point that backfires on you.
 
People please think realistic here, the entire scene got a make over. The only people who likely were involved in this were artists and they changed almost 1/3 of the textures in this scene. In upgrading the skin textures they decided to alter material properties as well, maybe they felt it looked better or they didn't pay attention or it was purely accidental. To assume that someone higher up was involved in this decision is a big stretch, since we know that they are all working on Detroit and this remaster had a skeleton crew working on it. Especially since other (much longer) scenes with even more black characters didn't receive any changes whatsoever. To target this short 10 minute chapter specifically bc they felt they needed to make black people more white is a hilarious assumption.
 

DedValve

Banned
I highly doubt it. Mostly only USA and some people in UK are SOOOOO obsessed with racism. In other parts of the world people don't give a fuck. "Oh, you are black? That's interesting and unusual but that's ok". But the customs in different countries are totally different. If someone changes skin color to better reflect reality that doesn't mean it's racism or something.

Name 1 country that isn't racist against people of a different ethnicity. Hell, name me a city.

Go on. I'll wait.
 
People please think realistic here, the entire scene got a make over. The only people who likely were involved in this were artists and they changed almost 1/3 of the textures in this scene. In upgrading the skin textures they decided to alter material properties as well, maybe they felt it looked better or they didn't pay attention or it was purely accidental. To assume that someone higher up was involved in this decision is a big stretch, since we know that they are all working on Detroit and this remaster had a skeleton crew working on it. Especially since other (much longer) scenes with even more black characters didn't receive any changes whatsoever. To target this short 10 minute chapter specifically bc they felt they needed to make black people more white is a hilarious assumption.

They aren't black; they're Middle Eastern. Saudi Arabian to be specific. This literally isn't a black or white thing; it's about the depiction of fairer skinned ME's vs. darker skinned MEs. The term "whitewashing" is just being used figuratively here when most people say it.

Hopefully.

I highly doubt it. Mostly only USA and some people in UK are SOOOOO obsessed with racism. In other parts of the world people don't give a fuck. "Oh, you are black? That's interesting and unusual but that's ok". But the customs in different countries are totally different. If someone changes skin color to better reflect reality that doesn't mean it's racism or something.
Again, this isn't about black or white, or stereotypical "only US/UK care about racism" garbage. It's actually rather disturbing how many posters are conflating what's in the OP to literal black/white racism, as if that's the only form of discrimination or that it's exclusively a black thing or that there aren't any issues involving depiction of darker-skinned non-black people in media of other countries.

Open up a history book or webpage that isn't Twitter or Facebook for once and you might see that it's a lot more grey than you realize, damn.
 
They aren't black; they're Middle Eastern. Saudi Arabian to be specific. This literally isn't a black or white thing; it's about the depiction of fairer skinned ME's vs. darker skinned MEs. The term "whitewashing" is just being used figuratively here when most people say it.

Hopefully.
Yeah, of course. Which hopefully proves even more that these changes are seemingly entirely random. Same with changing a perfectly fine looking green dress to grey for seemingly no reason at all. It's either some sort of random generator that's populating these scenes or some artist felt like changing it. But I'm sure it wasn't a producer who came in and said he wanted more grey dresses if you know what I mean.
 
Yeah, of course. Which hopefully proves even more that these changes are seemingly entirely random. Same with changing a perfectly fine looking green dress to grey for seemingly no reason at all. It's either some sort of random generator that's populating these scenes or some artist felt like changing it. But I'm sure it wasn't a producer who came in and said he wanted more grey dresses if you know what I mean.
Right. And it's only a remaster so those kind of decisions wouldn't make any sense coming from higher up. I'm (hopefully) not being perceived as insinuating QD did this directly or anything even if my initial post kind of maybe did that. It's still an odd change, and we can read into it whatever we want, but that doesn't mean it was done out of spite. It's just also a tad irritating when folks go by the wrong metric in justifying otherwise sensible reasons for why it's probably not a decision done out of bad reasons.

Apologies if I came off as a jerkass in my response to 'ya; the internet does that to people sometimes. But hopefully people realize there's more nuance to representation of all ethnic groups to where they shouldn't outright boil it all down to literal black or white. I've seen some pretty dark-skinned Indians, for example.
 

UrbanRats

Member
The initial reaction would be to point and laugh, but then I'm thinking: What is there to gain from this change? And so I'm inclined to think this was a mistake or unfortunate coincidence of a quick upres job gone wrong.
 
Actually looks more like a Saudi to me now. To all those moaning about this - have you been to Arabia? Do you know any Arabs? A lot of Arabic people will have skin as pale as a European.
 

yurinka

Member
I don't care about their color skin. Both back then and now. But I feel weird seeing they changed them and I don't understand why.

I don't know anyone from Saudi Arabia but from my European ignorance I'd say that if they are Saudi makes sense to be like in the original version.

I assume that if they changed them is because they have a good amount of white skinned arab people there and the devs were as ignorant as me.
 
Not caring about someones skincolor is now racist, too?

Isn't that what you are supposed to be in anti-racism ideology? When everyone is equal and no one cares what color is your skin?

"I don't see color" is NOT the same as not caring about a person's skin color. Human beings come in my different skin colors. so saying you don't see color means is lying to yourself or you are blind. Also the former is generally used by racist. Similar to how they sometimes say "I have a black friend."

The point is we are different but we should not treat each other poorly or differently solely because of an uncontrollable aspect of themselves. A person is an individual NOT their race.

Actually looks more like a Saudi to me now. To all those moaning about this - have you been to Arabia? Do you know any Arabs? A lot of Arabic people will have skin as pale as a European.
To be fair in a very sad and pathetic way, a lot of westerns don't know that Arabs are white.

What is commercial made in Japan for 100? Alex
 
Saudis are actually pretty fair skinned so I don't see the issue

Actually looks more like a Saudi to me now. To all those moaning about this - have you been to Arabia? Do you know any Arabs? A lot of Arabic people will have skin as pale as a European.

You both are missing the point so much it's almost laughable. It doesn't matter if a lot or most Saudis are fair skinned or "pale as a European" (I do doubt that particular part consistently); the point is*, there are still a sizable amount who aren't, so how was the inclusion of a darker-skinned Saudia a misrepresentation? Or is it only a misrepresentation when the potentially slighted group is of a fairer skin tone?

You do realize that's kind of racist....or at least incredibly stupid thinking, right?

*
In relation to the particular tangent of topic you've raised, not insofar as what's in the OP in particular.
 
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