One of my biggest annoyances when it comes to character creation sections in games is the lack of hair options for Afrocentric people. Look, it’s great that they finally added detailed skin tone variations, but that really does me or people like me any good when I’m forced to either go with the Afro, thick dreads or buzz cuts IF I wanted to created an authentic Black character. And what’s puzzling to me is why that’s always been largely ignored. At first I thought, “huh, maybe our hair just ain’t that easy to model or animate”, then I’d take one look at ANY of the 2K NBA games and realize that’s bullshit.
Let me say that games like Monster Hunter World, Guild Wars 2 and Daemon X Machina are some of the few games that have offered decent amount of hair style options for Afrocentric folks, but the truth of the matter is, this area in gaming is lacking severely. It’s something really frustrating to browse by 10 to 20 different hairstyles for Eurocentric and Asian-centric hairstyle, and only find three of the most generic Afrocentric hairstyles on the planet. Am I saying that Black people don’t have these hairstyles, no. However, walk into ANY, and I mean ANY BLACK OWNED barbershops, and you’ll soon come to realize that we got variation for days.
From Temple Fade with Sponge Twists and Frohawks to Box Fades and 360 Waves, we got plenty to spare. And it would only take someone who really wants to offer the best customization option in their games to just google it and learn. Or even better, walk into your local black-owned barbershop/saloon and just ask.
Astral Chains made me realize that we’re in 2019, and the options for Afrocentric hairstyles in games is abysmal. Like I said, if we can create amazing games like Witcher 3, Death Stranding & Cyberpunk 2077, create monstrosity like MHW’S Rathalos & Nioh’s Great Centipede to such great details, then I don’t wanna hear people say “making Afrocentric hairs is difficult“, because judging from the feats people have accomplished in gaming, it’s not!
That’s my thought on this matter, let me know what you think?
