Games with black protagonists?

[Squilookle]

I'm genuinely surprised how few people instantly thought of GTA San Andreas. I always thought of that game as THE game that said a big "FU" to anyone who said you couldn't make a massively successful game with a black protagonist.

While we're talking about sandboxes, we also have Chris Jacobs from Mercenaries 1 and 2:

And of course, Lincoln Clay from the upcoming Mafia III

 

[Metalmacher]

Does Mordechai from B2 counts?

 

[Salsajoe]

Does it have to be characters who've been written by the devs of that particular game, or are playermade characters part of this? In the case of the latter: Any game with a proper character creation.

Other than that

Alien Swarm has a playable black person

Broforce

Payday 1 and/or 2 (cannot remember)

Tropico has those 'El presidentes' who can be black if you choose the predetermined, or the character creation which then causes this game to fall under the aforementioned category. I am not sure if a character like that can be a protagonist in that sense though.

Dead Island

 

[Xeros]

Lawrence Mujari from Syphon Filter. He has playable chapters in the 3rd and 4th games, while the fourth's protagonist is a created character, so he/she too can be black.

 

[laggyteabag]

TellTale's The Walking Dead Season 1 and Season 2, 400 Days and the Michonne DLC for Season 2.

You play as Lee and Clementine in Season 1 and 2, Russel in 400 Days, and Michonne in the DLC for season 2.

 

[Beliyal]

Most I knew have already been mentioned. The one that wasn't is Valiant Hearts; one of the playable characters is a black man.

 

[Callate]

The heroine of Dontnod's Remember Me is of mixed European/African heritage, though this doesn't become readily apparent until fairly late in the game.

House of the Dead: Overkill/Typing of the Dead: Overkill and Blue Harvest both have black main characters, though you don't embody them all game.

Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head that haven't already been brought up.

(EDIT: Whoops- someone beat me to Remember Me.)

 

[Batou667]

There is the SiN series, a cyberpunk FPS about a woman trying to become a goddess using biotechnology and the only one who can stop her is a dreadlocked heavily armed badass, and is a game that almost no one remembers.

IIRC SiN was released in the same month as Half Life. Retail suicide.

Games with central black characters?
Left 4 Dead 1 and 2
The Walking Dead
Dead Island
Prototype 2
Crackdown
50 Cent
GTA V
Urban Chaos, a terrible PS1-era game
Tiger Woods PGA Golf series
Just about every NBA game... or is that cheating?
Streets of Rage 1/2/3

 

[Malevolentcafe]

The default character for Saints Row 2 was generic black dude.

 

[Glaice]

Payday 1 and/or 2 (cannot remember)

That would be Chains.

 

[DementedSheep]

Dead Island has Sam B, Left 4 Dead has Louis and Coach, The walking dead has Lee and Clementine (is this a zombie genre thing?), Remember Me has Nilin (mixed). That's all I can think of right now out games I've played, not including make your own with a black option.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

In Papo & Yo, you play as a black child.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Remember Me has Nilin, she's black and a woman, so bonus points?

Wait, seriously? She's black? She looks whiter than that tea-tipped chick in Resi 5 who's supposed to pass as black.

 

[Arkliem]

Timesplitters 2 has many protags. The protag of the Wild West era, Elijah Jones, is black.
As stated above, Streets of Rage has Adam in 1, and Skate in 2.
The Elder Scrolls: Redguard follows Cyrus.
1001 Spikes has President Thompson.
If I recall in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, one of the clans has a black char as the protag.

 

[ommadawnyawn]

Mobygames list for reference (87 and counting):
http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/protagonist-black

The criteria makes the list a lot smaller though.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Well the main character in Limbo is pretty black in fact I dont think I have seen anyone blacker.

 

[ObserverStatus]

Knock knock, it's Knuckles.
https://j3blackgamer.wordpress.com/2015/02/25/black-characters-in-gaming-knuckles-sonic-3-knuckles/

Spoiler

I'm sorry

 

[Dragonbums]

Because from what I've seen from US culture often Black and Person of colour are rather interchangeable.

Than you've seen way fucking wrong. That or your cherrypicking.

As a black woman myself, Black people are often referred to people who are black- or if we are to go into other countries, people from Africa, Haiti, Jamaica, etc. And- you know they all tend to have similar features. That's what we mean by black people

People of color is an all encompassing term that refers to anyone that doesn't go into the "white" category. A term born during the US when Jim Crow and segregation was legal. Here the defining factor was simple- if your skin tone didn't range from Scottish white to California tan you were 'colored'.

People in this category are often black people, Hispanic people, Asian people, and Middle Eastern people.

You wouldn't call an Asian person black. You wouldn't call a Hispanic/Latino person black, you wouldn't call a Middle Eastern person black.

 

[Dragonbums]

Remember Me has Nilin, she's black and a woman, so bonus points?

well milado, i think her dad's white with her mom being black... hrm, does that count?

Hate to be that person, but that just looks like they took a white woman model and put the skin tone slider down to tan.

She would pass more as a Middle Eastern/ White mix than a White/Black mix. Unless her mom herself was mixed and married to a white man.

That's really pushing it.