This week, Genshin Impact patched in four new costumes for female characters that have been crafted in response to Chinese government regulators.
The costumes for Mona, Jean, Amber and Rosaria are more conservative, large and small redesigns build to meet some sort of arbitrary “decency” standard. For most players, this wasn’t really a big deal, as the new costumes are optional in regions outside of China, and can serve as simply a new style choice, if preferred.
However, now that Genshin Impact has patched in the costumes, they revealed something else about them, that they are now the “official” looks of the characters across all regions when the characters appear in the story as NPCs:
“For animation cutscenes from Version 2.6 and earlier, Jean, Amber, Rosaria, and Mona's appearances will be adjusted to the Alternate Outfits.”
As in, every time you see these characters in-game when you’re not controlling them, they will be wearing the censored outfits. This has fans concerned about the application of Chinese government-based regulations to the game in regions outside China. And it raises questions about future character design, and the fact that more of these redesigns are probably coming.
The changes to these four characters are focused on covering up more skin, or making outfits less form-fitting. Amber’s redesign is especially strange, quite literally done to apparently cover up a few pixels on her rear and chest. miHoYo seems to have had a little bit of fun here, as Rosaria’s outfit is described as being the original one given to her by the church (her old outfit was a church get-up she modified in her own style).
However, again, it’s not clear where this ends. I can easily see characters like Lisa, Shenhe, Ganyu, Raiden Shogun, Beidou and even Lumine attracting the attention of “decency regulators” the same way these first four have. So, more redesigns? More permanent changes? And then there’s the question of China’s restrictions on portrayals of “effeminate men” in media and games, and whether that might come up.
Ultimately, I believe this will fundamentally alter how Genshin Impact designs its characters in the future, as they are not going to want to make two versions of every character going forward to appease regulators. It’s a frustrating issue to have to deal with, as no other games in the West or in Asia have to deal with restrictions this tight. You cannot release say, a pornographic video game in many storefronts, but covering up a few pixels worth of skin to meet “decency” standards is simply not a thing. We’ll see how this develops the next time a new character is revealed, and if we’re going to get any more of these censored skins implemented soon.
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