Samanya: Blonde?

[[Lizard Wizard]]

Why was Samanya switched to a blond hair color when in the original she clearly has red hair?

It even looks like they darkened her skin some...

What in the actuall hell guys? I'm not one for these kind of arguements but what kind of color washing is this?

Did Samanya NEED to be a pretty blonde girl? Was her being part of the head of a rebellion not enough? Is her skin tight body suit not sexy enough?

This has to be one of the strangest decisions I've seen and honestly it feels...jarring. Why try to make me look at this character different?

She was a bland protaganist before adding blonde hair to her is just going to make me roll my eyes harder than ever.

[Space Coward]

She always looked like this in the cutscenes. Having red hair in game then looking different in cutscenes was a massive continuity error, and one that could be fixed by a simple colorize.

A lot of people complained about "whitewashing" in the Outcast remake for the same reason-- Cutter Slade in the intro FMV and Cutter Slade in-game looked nothing alike.

[[Lizard Wizard]]

Originally posted by Moss:

She always looked like this in the cutscenes. Having red hair in game then looking different in cutscenes was a massive continuity error, and one that could be fixed by a simple colorize.

A lot of people complained about "whitewashing" in the Outcast remake for the same reason-- Cutter Slade in the intro FMV and Cutter Slade in-game looked nothing alike.

Was she? I seem to remember her having red hair all throughout the original even in cutscenes.

Even so her hair was red for the Mauraders too, I think this is just a dumb change, if not a super minor one.

I kind of see it as trying to make a character more appealing than correcting a continuity error, otherwise they would of patched her right away in the original.

It doesn't detract from the game too much for me, and I'm not too happy with the remaster anyways, but I did want to see what others thought of it.

And I didn't know that about Outcast...I wonder often this happens in games?

It happened to Link from Zelda, he went from reddish/brown, to brown, to straight up golden blonde. Zelda should of been given black hair.

[Just Chill]

It's a fix.
If you start a new game you see a clear video of Samanya where she was blond (quarreling with Dan before Tutorial Mission).

Later, when Alec got to the RF hideout and Samanya stepped to him with red hair I, didn't even realize it was the same person as in the intro movie.

So the red hair were wrong in the original already.

http://redfaction.wikia.com/wiki/Samanya#Trivia

During cutscenes, her hair will change from red to blonde. That's because when she joined the Colonists, her original Marauder hairstyle remained unchanged ingame out of the DLC Demons of the Badlands while in cutscene it revealed her blonde hair color so the Colonists won't know her real nature until the end.

[Spicy Lobster]

Mate, who cares for the charecters anyway? As you said, she is bland, so why don't you just ignore it xD

[[Lizard Wizard]]

Originally posted by Allanmaster:

Mate, who cares for the charecters anyway? As you said, she is bland, so why don't you just ignore it xD

Because it was an odd change that I did not notice and when I did I couldn't stop noticing it. Some people like me just catch onto details like that and it is the most minor of complaints.

But I have free time to make minor complaints, so I shall.

[ATP2555]

Originally posted by Allanmaster:

Mate, who cares for the charecters anyway?

I do.

[peterthierolf]

I am sorry that the color of Samanyas hair now seems to offend some players.

We have changed her hair to blonde because we could not change the FMVs. We felt the inconsistency was quite distracting. I personally did not get the two were the same person until a long way into the game (but I just might have been ignorant when playing).
Furthermore, the hair was not painted onto the characters textures but was just a 3d model sitting on top of the blonde colored base model - the seams were very visible and ugly in the original (much more so with better res).

We just had to draw a decision and decided towards consistency.

[AbedsBrother]

Originally posted by GordoTheGrim:

Originally posted by Moss:

She always looked like this in the cutscenes. Having red hair in game then looking different in cutscenes was a massive continuity error, and one that could be fixed by a simple colorize.

A lot of people complained about "whitewashing" in the Outcast remake for the same reason-- Cutter Slade in the intro FMV and Cutter Slade in-game looked nothing alike.

Was she? I seem to remember her having red hair all throughout the original even in cutscenes.

Your memory deceives you. Samanya has always had blonde hair in the pre-rendered cutscenes of the main campaign. And when they cast the (brief) role in Red Faction Origins, they cast a blonde lady. Samanya is, from her time with the Red Faction onwards, canonically blonde.

Am glad the game matches the cutscenes. Little stuff like that is annoying.

[Just Chill]

People should play the DLC if they want to see Samanya in her Marauder style. :P

Originally posted by peterthierolf:

We have changed her hair to blonde because we could not change the FMVs. We felt the inconsistency was quite distracting. I personally did not get the two were the same person until a long way into the game (but I just might have been ignorant when playing).

I totally support this explanation.

Maybe she simply styles her hair for the nice FMVs and then puts her hair into the red sand of Mars during gameplay?


No seriously, thanks for fixing that.
I don't know if I ever mentioned it in the hub of the regular edition but it was indeed a distraction and inconsistency, especially if you played the first time. ^^


After a while you get used to that issue and if people get used to something they normally freak out if that is changed.
I won't mind it, simply as it is a proper fix for an issue in the original game.