1st of all, There still A LOT of work to be done, by this I mean, having AAA games with main lead characters as Dark Skinned/ Black/ African American without just being a thug (looking at you San Andreas) but I feel often that not, the efforts developers/ Publishers do get ignored as if they didnt exist just cause they are not full on Paradigm shifts. So I wanted to make a thread to highly this baby steps, its not the end goal, but have to start from somewhere.
On Top of My Head
Nintendo
*Xenoblade X's Character Customization: Skin Tone/ Gender
*Xenobalde X Elma (Main Lead ignore your OG DONT STEAL Character)
*Fire Emblem 3 House's Claude Being 1 of the 3 Lord/ Routes
*Ring Fit Adventure's Character customization: Skin Tone/ Gender
*Animal Crossing New Horizon's Character Customization: Skin Tone/ Gender
*Splatoon 2's Marina, 1 of the 2 Main Idols
*Splantoon 2-3 Characters Customization: Skin Tones/ Gender (3 goes with Neutral)
*ARMS: Min Min, Twintelle, Misango
*Wonderful 101: Wonder Black, Wonder White, A lot of other W101 being native to different countries, ethnicities (also Maybe this fit more as under Platinum Games)
*Pokemon Sword and Shield: Champion (Leon), Rival (Hop), Gym Leaders (Nessa, Bea, Raihan)
*Pokemon Sword and Shield Character's Customization: Skin Tone/ Gender
*LoZ: Sky Sword: Impa
*LoZ: BotW Urbosa being the Second Strongest Champion after Link (Personally I think she is stronger than him but Link was the Appointed Knight of Zelda)
Sony:
Spider man: Miles Morales
Ubisoft:
Assassins Creed 3: Connor
Assassins Creed Origins: Bayek
Sega:
Yakuza: Like a Dragon Ichiban Kasuga
Personally, I dont see any Developer/ Publisher swapping established characters any time soon, so the best chance for direct representation in Main Roles, would be new Franchises, that being said there is also lot of Potential in stablished franchises that spew out new casts for newer Entries (and this is spread in several genres of games)
Example of Potential series: Persona, Dragon Quests, Silent Hill, Metal Gear, Pikmin, Final Fantasy, Tales,
On Top of My Head
Nintendo
*Xenoblade X's Character Customization: Skin Tone/ Gender
*Xenobalde X Elma (Main Lead ignore your OG DONT STEAL Character)
*Fire Emblem 3 House's Claude Being 1 of the 3 Lord/ Routes
*Ring Fit Adventure's Character customization: Skin Tone/ Gender
*Animal Crossing New Horizon's Character Customization: Skin Tone/ Gender
*Splatoon 2's Marina, 1 of the 2 Main Idols
*Splantoon 2-3 Characters Customization: Skin Tones/ Gender (3 goes with Neutral)
*ARMS: Min Min, Twintelle, Misango
*Wonderful 101: Wonder Black, Wonder White, A lot of other W101 being native to different countries, ethnicities (also Maybe this fit more as under Platinum Games)
*Pokemon Sword and Shield: Champion (Leon), Rival (Hop), Gym Leaders (Nessa, Bea, Raihan)
*Pokemon Sword and Shield Character's Customization: Skin Tone/ Gender
*LoZ: Sky Sword: Impa
*LoZ: BotW Urbosa being the Second Strongest Champion after Link (Personally I think she is stronger than him but Link was the Appointed Knight of Zelda)
Sony:
Spider man: Miles Morales
Ubisoft:
Assassins Creed 3: Connor
Assassins Creed Origins: Bayek
Sega:
Yakuza: Like a Dragon Ichiban Kasuga
Personally, I dont see any Developer/ Publisher swapping established characters any time soon, so the best chance for direct representation in Main Roles, would be new Franchises, that being said there is also lot of Potential in stablished franchises that spew out new casts for newer Entries (and this is spread in several genres of games)
Example of Potential series: Persona, Dragon Quests, Silent Hill, Metal Gear, Pikmin, Final Fantasy, Tales,