Games with black protagonists?

LostTrigger

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Nov 3, 2014
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Im looking for games with a black protagonist or a black playable character like resident evil 5(or ff13). This does not include say fighting games/sports games or games with character customization. Honestly the only games I can think of are resident evil 5, prototype 2, and left 4 dead, this is also after searching around lol most of the ones i've seen are side characters. Im asking because im trying to put something together with the games I find and it really wouldnt be worth doing if I only had maybe 4 or 5 games so I need some help.
 

Asclepion

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Aug 16, 2011
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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.

 

FalloutJack

Bah weep grah nah neep ninny bom
Nov 20, 2008
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Alrighty then. Apart from the above mentioned, we have...

CJ from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Barret Wallace from Final Fantasy 7

Demoman from Team Fortress 2

...?!

Oh hey, did a search and there was a thread similar to this one a couple years ago.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.824538-Games-with-black-protagonists
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
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Both of Telltale's episodic Walking Dead games.

With the added bonus of being really good, if you're into that kind of thing.
 

Aetrion

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May 19, 2012
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In the original Diablo the mage was black, and likely the most popular character.

I think in The Walking Dead you play as a black guy. (Haven't played it yet)

Roland from Borderlands is black.



There really aren't a lot of big budget games where the sole protagonist is black. I can understand that to an extent though, game development teams are so huge that it's virtually impossible to have one that would be majority black, and with this current climate of manufactured outrage about everything race related there is no good reason for white developers to put themselves in the line of fire for accusations of blacksploitation and cultural appropriation and what not.

Also let's not forget the fact that the protagonist in most games is intentionally a blank slate and devoid of any real character. It serves as the vessel for self insertion, a Bella Swan with guns if you so will. White people have the dubious distinction of being the default in our culture, so whenever someone makes a character that is intentionally devoid of strong character traits they end up making that character white. This is why there are so many black supporting characters. A black supporting character can actually have a suitable personality.

Since the player's character usually doesn't have a personality at best all you'd get by making them black is a lazy nod to diversity (which you can set by simply giving players the choice of three f(r)aces that crops up in many games), and at worse an accusation of writing an incredibly one dimensional black character that doesn't actually convey anything about what it means to be black. It's just not like you can teach anyone anything meaningful about what being part of a minority feels like while they are fighting orcs and aliens.
 

Mister K

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Apr 25, 2011
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Well, there are not many, sadly, so from the top of my mind:

- TellTale's The Walking Dead (both season 1 and 2).
- Prototype 2.
- FInal Fantasy VII.
- Afro Samurai.

That's everyone I can remember who is not fighting game character. Why did you specifically mention that you don't want to see fg characters?
 

Frezzato

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Oct 17, 2012
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Two of my favorite games come to mind. Crackdown (and Crackdown 2). I never played #2 because the previews looked horrible. And Mercenaries for the original Xbox, as well as Mercenaries 2. Both games allow you to choose between protagonists.

You also have David Jones, one of a four man team, from Conflict Desert Storm and I believe Conflict Desert Storm II.

Wow, this has been an interesting trip down memory lane. There's Will Jacobs, a specialist you can unlock in the very first Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, which was for PC, original Xbox, Game Cube and PS2. There are also a number of various "regular" special forces soldiers you can choose for your initial team, all of which seem to have random ethnic backgrounds.
 

Blood Brain Barrier

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Nov 21, 2011
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With the amount that Elder Scrolls is mentioned around these parts (not a huge fan personally) I'm surprised Redguard hasn't been mentioned



Others:
The Journey Down
The Moment of Silence
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Paradise
 

TheMann

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Jul 13, 2010
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Well there's Aliens vs. Predator (2010). Yup, "The Rookie" is a black guy. Not all that significant due to the fact that the game is in first-person and he never says anything. But you do see him at the beginning of the marine campaign.
So, there is that.
 

Wuvlycuddles

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Oct 29, 2009
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No love for Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death?

Also there are some Blade games based on the films... I wouldn't play those if I were you though.
 

Bat Vader

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!954 Alcatraz you play as two different characters with one of them being black.

Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy you play a black protagonist in some parts of the game.

The Journey Down you play as a black protagonist.
 

WhiteFangofWhoa

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Jan 11, 2008
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Starhawk
Shadowman
Enter the Matrix (what? you never said they had to be good games)
God of War (we don't see much of Kratos' skin before it's permanently made deathly pale, but he is voiced by an African-American)
 

Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
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Feb 9, 2012
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Borderlands, Diablo and Diablo II, Assassin's Creed: Liberation, Far Cry 3 (co-op campaign), Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide...
 

DrownedAmmet

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Apr 13, 2015
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Asclepion said:
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.

I remember! *points to avatar*

I was pretty young when the game first came out, but my older brother was a pc gamer, and for some reason this was the one game of his that I would keep coming back to. I beat Half-Life once, but Sin I played through probably hundreds of times (it also helped that I played through it on a newer computer so there were no loading times). The thing that amazes me about the game is how many different ways you can go through the game. There is a part of the game where the bad guys are planning on poisoning the water supply at the water plant, and you have to go in and stop them. I probably played the game a hundred times before I found out that if you fail some objectives, and the bad guys do manage to poison the water supply, it actually starts a new level where you go into the sewers to stop the water from reaching the city.

I could probably write a hundred-page paper on why I love that game, but yeah, the main dude is black, which is cool, too.
 

tgbennett30

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Oct 7, 2010
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The Suffering, both 1 and 2.

Torque never actually speaks in the game, but is clearly black.

Game is an interesting hodge-podge - some really neat and fascinating elements combined with some abject failures of gameplay - to blend the plusses and minuses and call it "average" might be doing it a disservice, though.
 

Itsuki93

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Assassins Creed: Freedom Cry, you play as Adéwalé who appears in Black Flag. I know it started out as DLC but it then became a standalone game so I'm still counting it.
 
Apr 5, 2008
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Left 4 Dead 1 and 2
Crysis 2 & 3 (but they are terrible games)
TES 3, 4 & 5 as Redguard
GTA San Andreas
GTA V
Prototype 2

Many RPGs, MMOs and other games with character creation let you create black PCs, including SWTOR (my Gunslinger [http://oi58.tinypic.com/2crkle8.jpg] is magnificent), GTA V and Online, Saints Row 3/4, Mass Effect series, etc.