Has Riot “whitened” Qiyana from LoL? Players took notice of her skin color on the latest icon
The community has taken notice of Qiyana’s skin tone in her latest skin.
Yesterday, the creators of League of Legends announced several new skins coming to the game in celebration of Chinese New Year. Among them, you’ll find a truly diverse range of heroes, from Malphite, Kha’Zix, or Thresh, to Ashe, Irelia, and Sivir. Qiyana is also to get a new skin. And this is where a problem arises.
Graphics related to the new skins, i.e. icons or emoticons, among others, have been published. Players have pointed out that the skin color of the Ixtal heroine has turned suspiciously light.
Riot trying to whiten Qiyana’s skin?
There are more than 160 diverse heroes in League of Legends. Many of them represent different cultures or minorities. Developers are trying to introduce more and more interesting characters with whom the game community can identify.
Recently, there was a lot of talk about K’Sante, who was the first black hero who belongs to the LGBT+ community. Many months earlier, Riot announced that it wanted to introduce champions who represented specific cultures. This is what was spoken about 2 years ago:
Yes, the main reason we created a new faction from Ixtal was that we felt we had a region that we could make representative of Latin culture. We want to develop this theme in the future.
We are definitely missing a good South Asian representation right now. This is something we would like to focus on in the future. And it will probably happen sooner than you think.
Many players were pleased that Riot is introducing heroes with darker skin. Examples include Akshan or the aforementioned K’Sante. Not surprisingly, an attempt to whiten either of them would be received in a strongly negative way.
But back to Qiyana and her new Mythmaker skin – according to the community, the image of the character on her icon does not reflect the correct skin color of the girl.
According to some fans, the complexion on the new icon is not much different from that of other heroines.
One of the Rioters – Alex Quach 郭勇安, known as Riot Yuujou – spoke out on the matter. He reassured the community, saying that these are only early versions of the graphics and the graphic designers will still improve them.
Unfortunately, this response only angered the players more. One of them wrote back to Rioter:
Even if y’all “have to work on it”, why on earth would it begin with a different skin tone? Do y’all make the icons with light skin by default and then give them their right skin? The amount of times this happens cannot be a coincidence, these are just lame excuses.
Riot Yuujou responded to these allegations and explained that the developers work with different artists and the early reference materials that are sent to the graphic designers do not always render the correct shades – a lot depends on lighting or effects affecting the character. Only when the skins are fully polished does the time come for minor adjustments and refinement of other graphics.
