Why are half the gods painted black?

[mr worldwide]

I recently started playing this game but I can't wrap my head around this question. Surely it's not as simple that it's a poor attempt at collecting political correctness points right?

[Nibbie]

“We knew going into Hades that we wanted this to be the story of a big dysfunctional family set in the Underworld of Greek myth, told from the Underworld’s point of view. As we discussed and researched the Olympians from canon sources, something stood out that in retrospect was obvious: They’re called the Greek gods because they were worshiped in ancient Greece, not because they themselves are ethnically Greek. Zeus rules all the heavens, not just the airspace over Greece. Poseidon rules all the sea and land. They sprang from the Titans, who sprang from primordial Chaos, the source of all creation. So it stands to reason that the gods represent all the people of the world, at least indirectly.”
-Greg Kasavin, creative director of Supergiant Games

[festeringdesire]

what nibble said but also in ancient greek (historically approved) people were darker than now due to high exposure to sun. greece has always been a really sunny and warm place, even now :)

[DaBa]

The game distorts a lot of colours like this on the characters, if you pay attention you'll notice that almost all character portraits have muted/distorted colour pallets except for a couple of their defining colours. Like with Artemis where they make her skin look sickly green, just to mesh better with the green theme. They also like to play with shading on them, you have characters like Zeus who will have skin ranging from ink black to bright yellow, purely because of shading. Or Hades, that has a face that is literally grey, meanwhile his arms have bright pink skin in spots without shadow. As I said, a lot of colour distortion, muting some of the pallet to make the defining colours stand out, and then a lot of creative shading.

TL/DR: Artistic choice, makes for a unique artstyle.

[Tandy]

Originally posted by gösser gaming:

as simple that it's a poor attempt at collecting political correctness points right?

Because for marketing purposes they want to lure these kind of ignorant debates, that engage people in free advertising made by low quality chatter, for their product.
And you fell right for it. Whenever you spot another attempt around, do yourself a clever favour, and stay away from this low quality consumerism bait.

[BottomFraggot]

there were black people in ancient greece you know. There's a good book on it from Harvard University Press by Frank Snowden called Blacks in Antiquity.

[Setster007]

It's a mix of "We are a diverse group, we like diversity" and "Looks good". And besides, it doesn't really matter, does it?

[VBro96]

Damn bro I didn't even notice. I'm not obsessed with race gender & eugenics tho

[Mack]

I hate when my game about using a assault rifle railgun to kill a death god so I can escape from the underworld gets interrupted by historically inaccurate skin tones for some of the gods.

[Iditri]

Oh, no, the game where you escape from worst pits of hell, have a machine gun and are able to kill God of death himself gets interrupted by "inaccurate" skin tones of some gods like Ares and Athena. Oh, heavens 😟😟😟😟

It's crazy. I hadn't even noticed it anyone except Athena until you stated now

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by Iditri:

Oh, no, the game where you escape from worst pits of hell, have a machine gun and are able to kill God of death himself gets interrupted by "inaccurate" skin tones of some gods like Ares and Athena. Oh, heavens 😟😟😟😟

It's crazy. I hadn't even noticed it anyone except Athena until you stated now

Aren't they warriors? They'd be spending a lot of time in the scorching heat of the battlefield.
Good cause for getting a tan :P

Also - Ancient Greeks weren't White. Definitely not as white as people think nowadays.

[harken23]

Have you ever SEEN a Greek person?

[Iditri]

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

Originally posted by Iditri:

Oh, no, the game where you escape from worst pits of hell, have a machine gun and are able to kill God of death himself gets interrupted by "inaccurate" skin tones of some gods like Ares and Athena. Oh, heavens 😟😟😟😟

It's crazy. I hadn't even noticed it anyone except Athena until you stated now

Aren't they warriors? They'd be spending a lot of time in the scorching heat of the battlefield.
Good cause for getting a tan :P

Also - Ancient Greeks weren't White. Definitely not as white as people think nowadays.

Yes, Indeed I agree. Greeks aren't white but olive-ish if that makes sense. I was being sarcastic here with this guy.

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by Iditri:

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

Aren't they warriors? They'd be spending a lot of time in the scorching heat of the battlefield.
Good cause for getting a tan :P

Also - Ancient Greeks weren't White. Definitely not as white as people think nowadays.

Yes, Indeed I agree. Greeks aren't white but olive-ish if that makes sense. I was being sarcastic here with this guy.

Yeah I know, I was just commenting on your point to add a thought

[mr worldwide]

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

Originally posted by Iditri:

Oh, no, the game where you escape from worst pits of hell, have a machine gun and are able to kill God of death himself gets interrupted by "inaccurate" skin tones of some gods like Ares and Athena. Oh, heavens 😟😟😟😟

It's crazy. I hadn't even noticed it anyone except Athena until you stated now

Aren't they warriors? They'd be spending a lot of time in the scorching heat of the battlefield.
Good cause for getting a tan :P

Also - Ancient Greeks weren't White. Definitely not as white as people think nowadays.

Greeks weren't white, they still arent't. They never were black either, they never will be, just like Italians, Cypriots, Spaniards, Egyptians, Turkish etc.

We can't see the gods in gameplay, only in dialogue. Theseus*, like some gods, has a greyish black tone, but in gameplay, he's white. That's why it's hard to draw conclusions from dialogue alone.

[mr worldwide]

Originally posted by Tandy:

Originally posted by gösser gaming:

as simple that it's a poor attempt at collecting political correctness points right?

Because for marketing purposes they want to lure these kind of ignorant debates, that engage people in free advertising made by low quality chatter, for their product.
And you fell right for it. Whenever you spot another attempt around, do yourself a clever favour, and stay away from this low quality consumerism bait.

This kind of debate is on a secluded forum of a game which we already purchased, very few people visit a steam discussion to decide if they want to buy a game or no. It's not advertisement if you're already a consumer